HABITS OF THE GIANT SALAMANDER. 531 



nearly all of large size, were put into a wooden box (12 in.X 9 in.X 6 

 in. in size) in which numerous small holes had been bored and were 

 taken from western Pennsylvania to Baltimore, Maryland. Although 

 confined in such small space for a continuous period of nineteen 

 hours, they reached the end of their journey in perfect condition. On 

 another occasion fifteen of these same animals were put into the same 

 box and taken by rail to a distant city; on this occasion they were in 

 the box continuously for twenty-five hours, and one individual died on 

 the journey, apparently suffocated by the mass of disgorged liver that 

 filled its mouth. I had purposely refrained from feeding them for 

 several days previous to the journey, but their fast had not been suffi- 

 ciently long and the undigested liver was all disgorged, apparently 

 causing, as has been said, the death of one individual. 



Although possessed of such tenacity of life their recovery from 

 wounds is apparently slow, a wound in the head of one large specimen 

 remaining raw and open for several months. Possibly in its natural 

 environment recovery would have been more rapid. 



My chief aim, as I have said, in working with Cryptobranchus, being 

 to obtain embryological material, I enquired of every fisherman and 

 countryman I met, and of many other people as well, concerning the 

 breeding habits of this little-studied animal. The only facts of any 

 sort that I could learn were obtained from Mr. C. H. Townsend, whom 

 I shall again quote. He says in the article mentioned above : ' ' Dur- 

 ing their confinement in the tub two of the females deposited a large 

 amount of spawn. This spawn was something similar to frog spawn 

 in its general appearance, but the mass had not the dark colors of the 

 latter. The ova were exuded in strings and were much farther apart 

 than frog eggs. They were of a yellow color, while the glutinous mass 

 which connected them had a grayish appearance." This deposition 

 of spawn, he says, took place in August. Had I had this information 

 earlier in the season it would have saved me many fruitless attempts 

 to capture the hellbenders, and possibly my efforts to obtain their eggs 

 might have been successful. As it was I did not get a single egg, the 

 animals refusing to spawn in captivity, though they were kept in a large 

 tank of running water under conditions as near like their natural 

 habitat as I could make them. 



Ovaries examined during the first two months showed a gradual 

 development, but those examined during the early part of September 

 showed evident signs of degeneration. All of the individuals killed, 

 except one or two, were females. It would seem that hellbenders, like 

 some other amphibia, will not spawn in captivity if removed from their 

 natural environment too long before their natural breeding season.* 



* The author has in preparation a paper on the anatomy and histology of 

 Cryptobranchus, which lie hopes to have ready for publication in a few months. 



