1893.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 227 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE JAPANESE SALAMANDER, CRYPTOBRANCHUS 



MAXIMUS (Schlegel). 



BY HENRY C. CHAPMAN, M. D. 



Questions as to what constitute a good or a bad species, whether 

 a species should be elevated to the rank of a genus, or degraded to 

 that of a variety, concerning which naturalists at one time dis- 

 puted so vehemently, have lost much of their interest in the light of 

 evolution. Indeed, if all the extinct forms of animal life could 

 be reproduced, the gaps now separating living ones would be so 

 bridged over that the species, orders, families, etc., of the systematic 

 zoologist would cease to have any significance whatever. 



As an illustration of such conflict of opinion may be cited the 

 difficulty experienced by naturalists in assigning to the great Japan- 

 ese salamander its proper position in relation to other batrachi a, it hav- 

 ing been named successively Salamandra maxima, 1 Megalobatrachus 

 sieboldii,' 1 Sieboldia maxima* Cryptobranchus japonicus* Megaloba- 

 trachus maximus? and, finally, if the author's interpretation of its 

 organization be accepted, Cryptobranchus maximus. Inasmuch as the 

 Japanese salamander is not a salamander, as w T as supposed by 

 Schlegel, the name Salamandra was soon set aside, as it gave an 

 erroneous idea as to the affinities of the animal. Tschudi, regarding 

 the form as sufficiently peculiar in its organization to warrant plac- 

 ing it in a distinct genus, designated it as Megalobatrachus sieboldii. 

 Bonaparte, afterwards, wishing to do honor to the distinguished 

 naturalist Siebold, who first introduced the Japanese animal to the 

 notice of Europe, and regarding it also as a distinct genus of 

 batrachia, named it Sieboldia. The name Cryptobranchus was 

 given as long ago as 1821 by Leuckart 6 to our common Allegheny 

 hell-bender. That animal having been described, however, a few 

 years later by Harlan, 7 first as Abranchus, a name soon given up, it 

 having been previously given by Hasselt to a mollusk from Java, 



1 Schlegel, Fauna Japonica, Lugd. Bar. 1838, p. 127, pis. 6-8. 



2 Tschudi, Batrachia, Neuchatel, 1888, p. 96, Taf. viii. 



s Bonapane, Fauna Italica, Tomo II, Roma 1832-1841. Sheet 131 * * * see 

 Euproctus. 



4 Van der Hoeven, Proc. Zoo. Soc. , London, 1838, p. 25. 



5 Bou'enger, Catalogue of the Batrachia Gradienlia, London, 1882, p. 80. Cope, 

 The Batrachia of North America, Washington, 188fc*, p. 37. 



6 Isis von Oken, Jena, 1821, p. 2o9. 



7 Annals of the Lyceum of Nat. History, New York, 1824, pp. 222, 270. 



