FIELD BOOK OF PONDS AND STREAMS 



they lose their gills. In some regions the adults leave the 

 brooks in the fall and hibernate under stones near the stream. 

 They are often abundant along the borders or in the beds of 

 shallow brooks. 



Size. — Length of adult 3 to 4 inches, sometimes smaller. 



Range. — From Maine to Florida and westward to Louisiana. 



Fig. 294. — Adult purple salamander, Gyrinophi- 

 lus porphyriticiis. 



Purple salamander, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus. — Full- 

 grown purple salamanders are light reddish with mottled 

 shado wings of a darker tone (Fig. 294). 



Habits, food. — They stay in small cold streams and little 

 runnels all their lives, hiding in hollows beneath stones and 

 feeding on the riffle organisms (p. 21) which continually 

 gather around them. 



Breeding habits. — 'Neither their breeding habits nor their 

 eggs are well known although the adults are abundant in 

 certain streams. Adults, and larvag evidently two years old 

 or more, are found in the same places. 



Size. — Adults 6 inches long. 



Range. — Locally common, eastern states; westward to Ken- 

 tucky and Tennessee. 



Mud-puppies — Necturidce. 



Mud-puppy, water-dog, Necturus maculosus. — A mud- 

 puppy looks like a frog-puppy, or a dachshund in a froggy 



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