of the same family, but actually the same individual creatures. Do
not even you know that a green drake, and an alder-fly, and a
dragon-fly, live under water till they change their skins, just as
Tom changed his? And if a water animal can continually change into
a land animal, why should not a land animal sometimes change into a
water animal? Don't be put down by any of Cousin Cramchild's
arguments, but stand up to him like a man, and answer him (quite
respectfully, of course) thus:-

If Cousin Cramchild says, that if there are water-babies, they must
grow into water-men, ask him how he knows that they do not? and
then, how he knows that they must, any more than the Proteus of the
Adelsberg caverns grows into a perfect newt.

If he says that it is too strange a transformation for a land-baby
to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the
transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-
fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well--"Who would not
exclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come
out of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the
reptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and
birds? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as
that would be." Ask him if he knows about all this; and if he does
not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise him (very
respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange things
cannot happen, till he has seen what strange things do happen every
day.

If he says that things cannot degrade, that is, change downwards
into lower forms, ask him, who told him that water-babies were