A German lady secured in this way the change of young axolotls to salamanders, or at least to salamandral form and habits. It has therefore been held that axolotls may be a class of salamanders, which from the conditions of their life have never dropped their gills or accustomed themselves to a land life. Others think that as the young salamanders and axolotls are so alike, mistakes have been made in handling the larvæ, and that those which developed as salamanders were hatched salamanders. So little is really known of the habits and life history of these creatures that they offer a pretty clear field for observation and experiment. It would be easy for some of our scientifically inclined young Americans to secure specimens from Mexico, and rearing the young from the eggs, note all their changes. Nothing is more attractive than original investigation. Some call the axolotl the “fish-formed siren,” as it has a fin-like membrane down the middle of the back, around the tail, and so on along part of the under portion of the body. This fin enables it to balance itself admirably in the water. Axolotls eat worms, snails, tadpoles, insects, bread-crumbs, bits of meat, or any small larvæ found in the water. FOOTNOTES: [69] Nature Reader, No. 3, Lesson 44. LESSON XXXVI. SOME MERRY LITTLE FRIENDS. “The heedless lizard in his gambols, peeped Upon the guarded nest, from out the flowers, But paid the instant forfeit of his life.” --MONTGOMERY. In calling the hideous and ill-tempered alligator _el lagarto_, the lizard, I think the Spanish explorers were guilty of a crying injustice to the lizard family, many of the members of which are the most delightful little creatures imaginable. How often in Italy, seated by some ancient ruin or on a stone wall draped in rose vines, I have watched the merry little lizards, dressed in crimson, orange, or green, darting among the gray stones like flashes of living light, or running along the trailing vines like animated blossoms. How often in the warm fragrant silence of the Tuscan hills, have I seen, thrust from the chinks of a pile of crumbling masonry, a pert little head, with a pair of diamond-bright eyes, watching me with intent interest. Friendly, graceful, entirely harmless, these little lizards seem to suit the beauty-loving Italians. I have never seen the smallest or rudest Italian boy throw a stone at one of them, or try in any way to hurt them. [Illustration: KNIGHTS ERRANT.]