64 The Axolotl. 
together, that plants build themselves with. By some hidden law 
an almost infinitesimally small germ of life has the power of con- 
verting inactive matter into active living matter, to form plants. 
These, in turn, compose the food of animals, and are assimilated 
by them to form another complication of life—z.e., animal life. If 
the plant is burned, or suffers natural decay after death, it returns 
to its original elements and in precisely the same proportions as 
drawn from the earth and air; or, if the plant is devoured by an 
animal, precisely the same occurs at the death and decay of the 
animal. A little living germ, in some incomprehensible way, 
causes inactive matter to become active for alittle season. It first 
manifests life and activity in the plant, then in the further compli- 
cation of animal life, and at the death and decay of the plant or 
animal becomes dead matter again. Here is the whole round of 
physical life. It is drawn from dead matter, and, after a short 
interval of activity, returns to dead matter again. Is the germ, 
too, made active by some force inherent in matter? It sometimes 
remains inactive in the seed for many years, and then springs into 
life. But then it may be said to inhere in the seed, and so it is. 
We have no right, however, to assume that conditions have never 
been such as to produce the germ itself from dead matter, or that 
such conditions do not now exist, or that they may not exist in the 
future. 
The Axolotl. 
HE transformations in case of the amphibia from the 
larval to the very different adult form have fur- 
nished common and interesting cases of metamor- 
phoses, which all have witnessed. Perhaps the most 
curious representative of this group of animals is the 
axolotl, which inhabits the high plateaus of the Rocky Mountain 
region, from Montana to Mexico. ‘The animal is ten or twelve 
inches long, fish-like in form, but with four legs, a long tail like 
that of a salamander, and a tuft of gills on each side of the large, 
flattish head. Specimens were taken to Europe many years ago. 
At the Jardin des Plantes one of these animals left the water of 
the aquarium in which it was kept. It had lost its gills, but they 
were replaced by lungs. An experiment was then made on speci- 
mens kept by Freulien Marie von Chauvin. She removed them 
from the water, kept them in damp moss, and thus actually forced 
them to transform into the gill-less, air-breathing state. They then 
somewhat resembled the large yellow-spotted salamander (Amédy- 
stoma), so common in this region. Previously it was supposed: 
