278 
LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS. 
tail with its fin — is lost. It is not thrown off, but its 
substance is gradually absorbed into the body. As this 
process takes place during the growth of the legs, when 
it is completed, the Tadpole has become a little Frog. 
The minute orifices which admitted the water into the 
gill-chamber have, at the same time, become closed, and 
breathing is henceforth performed exclusively by means 
of lungs, which are capacious sacs, subdivided internally 
into large cells. 
Such, then, is the metamorphosis which obtains in the 
most elevated forms of this Class, as our common Frog 
and Toad; and it may be witnessed with slight precau- 
tions by any one who will take the trouble to collect a 
mass of spawn from the nearest ditch, and transfer it to a 
fresh-water aquarium. In the Newts, which are no less 
common, the metamorphosis is less complete, and we per- 
ceive in their ultimate condition a closer alliance with 
Fishes ; since their limbs are small and feeble, their broad 
finny tail is retained through life, and is the principal organ 
of locomotion; for, in general, they continue more exclusively 
aquatic in their mode of life than the adult Frog or Toad. 
The eggs of the Newts are not deposited in a mass, but 
singly, and that under interesting conditions. Professor 
Bell thus describes the process in the case of our largest 
and finest species, the Common Warty-newt ( Triton cris- 
tatus'), the males of which are conspicuous enough in the 
vessels of the dealers in aquatic animals, in Covent Gar- 
den Market and elsewhere, by their roughoned blackish 
upper parts, their high notched back-fin, and their rich 
orange under-parts, spotted with black. The female is of 
less brilliant hues, and is destitute of the tail fin. 
