BREEDING HABITS OF DESMOGNATHUS FUSCA. 15 



daytime, and the mother was always found in this characteristic 

 coiled attitude, although the relative position of the eggs and the 

 mother was slightly changed from day to day. She seemed little 

 disturbed by these brief examinations unless the eggs were 

 actually handled, when she would leave the nest and go away a 

 little distance, always, however, to return to her charge later. 

 On August 23, after an incubation period of 52-53 days, the eggs 

 began to hatch, the process continuing through August 25. 



Meanwhile, on July 7, in the late afternoon, another female 

 in a similarly arranged terrarium, was found to have begun to 

 deposit eggs. This female had been captured on the same date 

 as the first (May 15), had shown when captured a similar 

 evidence of the presence of ripe eggs conspicuous through the 

 body wall, and had been similarly confined since May 20 with 

 another gravid female and a male. On July I the male had 

 been removed, however, and as soon as the eggs were discovered 

 the other female was removed also. At this time a small cluster 

 of three or four eggs had been deposited, and a single isolated 

 one which was removed at once from the nest for examination, 

 and was at this time unsegmented. 



On the following forenoon the egg-laying process had been 

 completed, and the usual two clusters of eggs were found, one 

 numbering six and the other twelve. The cluster of six eggs 

 was appropriated for study of the early cleavage, and it was 

 found that at that time, about twelve o'clock, some of them were 

 in the first cleavage stage, while others showed as yet no sugges- 

 tion externally of the cleavage process. The one which had been 

 removed on the previous afternoon was at this time in the second 

 cleavage stage. 



The eggs of this second batch were deposited in a cavity 

 hollowed out in the moist sphagnum under the stone, as was the 

 case of the first batch of eggs which had been deposited in the 

 other terrarium a week earlier. This second mother, however, 

 took from the beginning an unusual position with reference to 

 the eggs, for instead of lying among them with her body coiled 

 about them, she stood over them with her body in a straight line 

 and slightly elevated so that the eggs were beneath her belly 

 and only slightly in contact with it. Care was always taken in 



