REDISCOVERY OF ONE OF HOLBROOKES SALAMANDERS. 



By Leonhard Stejneger. 



OurcUor, Division of Reptiles and Batrachians. 



Among the man}^ synonj^ms usually cited under Desniogna. usfusca 

 (Ratinesque), Salamandra (juadrlmaculataoi Holbrook'^ has oeen con- 

 sidered as belonging- to this species without a shadow of a doubt. An 

 even dozen, old and young, salamanders from North Carolina recently 

 acquired by the United States National Museum seem to indicate that 

 Holbrook's name belongs to a species well separated from Desmog- 

 nafhus fusca and in some respect approaching D. nigra. It may be 

 formally recharacterized as follows: 



DESMOGNATHUS QUADRIMACULATA (Holbrook). 

 1842. Salamandra quadrimaculata Holbrook, North Am. Herpet., 2 ed., V, p. 49, 



pi. XIII. 



Ti/pe localiti/.—GeoYgm and the Carolinas. 



Diagnosis. — Top and sides of head roughly granular; dentition 

 essentially like I), fusca; head broad, its width less than 5 times in 

 distance from tip of snout to groin; body short, distance between tip 

 of digits of adpressed limbs about one-half the distance from tip of 

 mandible to gular fold; 13 costal folds; chest and belly in adult more 

 or less uniform slate color (in alcohol). 



jSpedmens examined.— CM. Nos. 30891-30902 U.S.N.M.; from a 

 small stream flowing into the Catawba River, between Linville and 

 Blowing Rock, North Carolina, collected September, 1902, by State 

 entomologist Mr. Sherman.'^ 



Bemarks. — As already said this species approaches I), nigra in sev- 

 eral features, for instance, in the shape of the head, but especially in 

 its shortness of body and tail. Like this species it is also much larger 

 than D. fusca. The number of costal folds is somewhat variable, 



« North Am. Herpet., 2 ed., V, 1842, p. 49, pi. xiii. 



b I have learned since from Mr. Sherman that these specimens were taken in a 

 pool on the side of Grandfather Mountain, probably the same one whence came tlie 

 types of Dr. J. Percy Moore's Leurognathus marmorata. In view of this I had the 

 skull of one of my specimens cleaned, but found it to be that of a typical Des)nognathus. 

 There is consequently no possibility of Doctor Moore's species being the same as the 

 one here described. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXVI— No. 1 321 . 

 Proc. N. M. vol. xxvi— 02 38 



