So, my good fish, I said, you are hanging your babies upon a tree-top, are you? That very bad mother, the dog-fish, does the same.[69] But her cradles are black and horny; yours are like pearls! Who are you? Whence do you come? What is your place and name among all the fish families? Stop: What is this I see growing from each side of your neck, like enormous whiskers? By this I perceive that you are not fish at all, but batrachians. These plumes are your external gills. And what are these? Why, truly, small legs and feet neatly drawn back as you swim; five webbed toes on the hind feet; four webbed toes on the front feet. Ah, but you are an interesting animal! Kindly stop swimming for a little until I count up your gifts and graces. A blunt head, shaped like the end of an ear of maize; a wide mouth; nostrils close to the lips; two little eyes also set close to the upper lip. Ah! I know you now--bone of contention among the scientific, most unexpected in your behavior, specimen of the order Urodela, spotted Amblystoma, oh, why cannot you have at least one simple and easy name, Mexican axolotl! A curious little child of Mexico is this denizen of the lakes of that warm southern land--a mild, silent, unhandsome, small beast, given to surprising people. The chief peculiarity of the creature is that it obstinately refuses ever to grow up, and remains in the larval state, instead of properly putting on the form of an adult. Nature’s perpetual child! And when it does grow up by chance, as, to be more surprising, some individuals do grow up, why then, it is no longer itself--but something else! Now my interest was greatly quickened in this creature, and I began to admire it. Its scaleless skin was of a dark drab or steel color, of a velvet-like softness; the gills were three on each side of the head, finely divided into soft, thick plumes, which waved to and fro, expanded, closed, half-folded, spread wide. No Spanish belle ever handled a fan more beautifully than this little swimmer used its gill-branches. Observe now the method of placing those translucent pearl cradles, the egg-pods. Twice about the twig the axolotl swims, eying it closely, as if considering of its fitness. Then she takes the twig, or the long, lithe stem of water-weed between her little webbed hands to steady it, and glides softly up the stem, and as she goes attaches the little pearl balls like seed-pods in a row. Nothing can be prettier than a long withe of green weed set with these pearly cradles shimmering in the sunlight; for not only do they hang as fair round pearls against the green in the water, but they are powdered all over with gold dust. This is a combination of green, pearl, and gold that any artist might envy.