Amphibians are animals that live part of their lives by getting oxygen from water, as fish do, and another part of their lives breathing air as most of the land animals do.
Frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and mudpuppies are amphibians. Most of them were born and lived part of their life in the water, and then came out on land. Amphibians are vertebrates. This means they have backbones, just as we do. They are cold-blooded animals. This does not mean they are cold all the time. They are cold when their surroundings are cold, but they are warm when they are in a warm place. All amphibians have tails, except frogs and toads. Amphibians arc hatched from eggs. The mother lays the eggs in the water, leaves them, and never sees them again.
In about a week, the egg hatches. What comes out is a tadpole or polliwog if it is going to grow into a frog or toad, and a creature very much like a tadpole if it is the young of one of the other amphibians. It has a round head and a long tail. The tadpole can live only in water. It breathes through gills, as a fish docs, and swims by wiggling its tail. Not until it grows older will it be able to breathe air as well as water. Tadpoles lose their tails when they become frogs or toads, but the other amphibians do not. All amphibians have smooth skins.
They do not have scales like fish, nor feathers like birds, nor hair like many other animals. The toad's skin is lumpy, but the bumps arc underneath the skin, and the surface of the skin itself is really smooth. Salamanders, newts and mudpuppies are amphibians. For the first part of their lives, they are tadpoles much like frogs and toads. As they begin to change, their tails do not disappear. They have long tails all their lives. The salamander spends almost all of its time in the water. Its skin becomes very dry if it stays on land too long. The newt leaves the water when it is fully grown, and lives on land. At this time it is orange in color, with red spots on its back. After living on land for two or three years, the newt returns to live in water. It changes its color from orange to green.
The red spots remain on its back. The mudpuppy lives all its life in the water, and even keeps its tadpole gills. Newts and salamanders look very much like lizards, but are different in two important ways. Newts and salamanders have smooth skin, and lizards have scaly skin. Lizards have claws on their toes; newts and salamanders do not. Amphibians do not eat a great deal. Their favorite food is insects. They are very helpful to man because they eat many insect pests.
Spiders In The Garden
Watching for their prey in the centre of a radiating geometrical snare, we often find the garden spiders. The beauty of their vertical orb-webs and the large size of these strikingly marked creatures always attract our attention during summer strolls.
Jack & Jill The Vulture Twins
Probably this story of Jack and Jill, the Vulture Twins, would never have been written, if Betsy, Farmer Parsons' old brindle cow, had not refused to come up from the woods one night. But she wouldn't come, so Farmer Parsons had to go down after her.
At Home With Mr. Burroughs
Youth still peered out at me in spite of his crowning thatch of silvery hair when I first met John Burroughs in 1904. As we walked together on our way to his rustic little house in the woods called "Slab-sides,"
