"Amphibia" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remain open during life, while the so called "visceral arches" throw out filaments which receive the arterial branches coming from the aortic arches, and so become the organs of respiration, or branchiae. But in all the other vertebrata (i.e. except fish and amphibia) the gill-slits do not develop branchiae, become closed (with the frequent exception of the first), and so never subserve the function of respiration. Or, as Mr. Darwin states it, "At this period the arteries run in arch-like branches, as if to carry the blood ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... its limbs; and though this loss has enabled them to occupy fresh places in nature and to increase and flourish to a marvellous extent, yet it must be considered to be a retrogression rather than an advance in organisation. The same remark will apply to the whale tribe among mammals; to the blind amphibia and insects of the great caverns; and among plants to the numerous cases in which flowers, once specially adapted to be fertilised by insects, have lost their gay corollas and their special adaptations, and have become degraded into wind-fertilised forms. Such are our plantains, our meadow ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in weight from 50 to 500 or 600 lbs. As turtles find a constant supply of food on the coasts which they frequent, they are not of a quarrelsome disposition, as the submarine meadows in which they pasture, yield plenty for them all. Like other species of amphibia, too, they have the power of living many months without food; so that they live harmlessly and peaceably together, notwithstanding that they seem to have no common bond of association, but merely assemble ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... made glad by the sight of a ship at anchor inshore, Seagriff still further rejoicing on recognising it as a sealing vessel, the very one on which, years before, he had cruised while chasing the fur-coated amphibia through ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... find their way into every article of food and drink. The rain also awakens from their slumbers the frogs that have hibernated and aestivated in the sun-baked beds of dried-up ditches and tanks. These awakened amphibia fill the welkin with their croakings, which take the place of the avian chorus at night. The latter ceases with dramatic abruptness with the first fall of monsoon rain. During the monsoon the silence ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... the "vertebrates," or animals having a backbone. First we see the fish family with its thousands of forms. Then come the amphibia, which include the toads, frogs, etc. Then come the reptiles, which include the serpents, lizards, crocodiles, turtles, etc. Then come the great family of birds, with its wonderful variety of forms, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... AMPHIBIA. A class of animals which, from a peculiar arrangement of breathing organs, can live either in water or on land. [Gr. amphibios, having a double manner of life.] ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... are half a Gargoyle yourself, Mellor, or you would have known that. You belong to the amphibia at present. When you've grown out of that you will ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... are still taken on the Lobos Islands, where the provident government of Montevideo restrict the fishery, or hunting, within certain limits, which insures an annual return of the seals. At certain seasons, these amphibia, for the purpose of renewing their coat, come up on the dark frowning rocks and precipices, where there is not a trace of vegetation. In the middle of January, the islands are partially cleared of snow, where a few patches of short straggling grass spring up in favorable situations; ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Edrioasterida, among the Echinoderms; and two, the Trilobita and Eurypterida, among the Crustacea; making altogether five for the great sub-kingdom of Annulosa. Among Vertebrates there is no ordinally distinct fossil fish: there is only one extinct order of Amphibia—the Labyrinthodonts; but there are at least four distinct orders of Reptilia, viz. the Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Pterosauria, Dinosauria, and perhaps another or two. There is no known extinct order of Birds, and no certainly known extinct order of Mammals, the ordinal distinctness ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... mind that evolution proceeded from certain amphibia to the lizards and from these to the birds and mammals. That is a long journey, but we have no alternative. If the amphibia (such as the frog and the salamander) descend from the fishes, all the higher ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... remarkable as if it were primary. The Plesiosauria—those extinct marine reptiles of the Secondary period, with long necks, small heads, and paddle-like limbs—are of yet higher organization than are the efts and other Amphibia. Nevertheless they present us with a similarity of structure between the fore and hind limb, which is so great as almost to be {179} identity. But the Amphibia and Plesiosauria, though not themselves primitive vertebrate types, may be thought by some to have ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... Genesis, birds appear together with aquatic creatures, and precede all land animals; according to the evidence of geology, birds are unknown till a period much later than that at which aquatic creatures (including fishes and amphibia) abound, and they are preceded by numerous species of land animals—in particular, by insects and other 'creeping things.'" Of the Mosaic account of the existence of vegetation before the creation of the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... cotemporaries, and as I am too old to make new acquaintances, I find myself isole". So, too, it is pretty certain that 'amphibious' was not yet English, when one writes (in 1618): "We are like those creatures called {Greek: amphibia}, who live in water or on land". {Greek: Zo:ologia}, the title of a book published in 1649, makes it clear that 'zoology' was not yet in our vocabulary, as {Greek: zo:ophyton} (Jackson) proves the same for 'zoophyte', and {Greek: polytheismos} (Gell) for 'polytheism'. One precaution, let me ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the Species of Reptiles and Amphibia hitherto described as inhabiting Australia, with a description of some New Species from Western Australia, and some remarks on their geographical distribution, by John Edward Gray, F.R.S., etc. etc., in a ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey |
