246 REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS 



In the Salamandrid^, by far the largest family of the 

 order, comprising the Salamanders and Newts, the eyelids 

 are well developed, with the exception of Typhlotriton, 

 in which they are concealed under the skin. The family, 

 which is distributed over nearly the whole of the Northern 

 Hemisphere, is divided into a number of sub-families, in 

 accordance with the disposition of the teeth and the mode 

 of articulation of the vertebrae. 



In Salamandra, represented by two species in Europe 

 and two in South-Western Asia, the tail is round and the 

 tongue is short and thick. The toes are, as usual, five in 

 number. 



The Spotted Salamander, S. maculosa, is generally 

 distributed over Central and Southern Europe, up to an 

 altitude of about 3,000 feet. The body, which is stout 

 and rather depressed, is smooth and shiny^ with a series of 

 large pores along each side of the vertebral line, and with 

 a lateral series of large warts separated by vertical grooves. 

 The head is broad, and has a pair of well-developed paro- 

 toid glands. The general colour is black, with yellow or 

 orange markings. The markings vary much in disposition, 

 according to the creature's geographical distribution. In 

 the typical form, which inhabits Southern and Eastern 

 Europe and Asia Minor and Syria, the black nearly always 

 greatly predominates over the yellow, which may appear 

 as markings of various shapes, disposed over the body, often 

 in three to five alternate series, or with a median series 

 forming a sinuous or zigzag vertebral stripe. If, as is 

 very exceptionally the case, the spots appear to form two 

 longitudinal series, they do not hang together in regular 

 chains continuous with the spots on the parotoids, which 

 are always present. In the variety tceniata, of Central and 



