28 



BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The difference in the coloration is considerable. The Science Col- 

 lege specimen is paler (more faded ?) with less coarse marblings than 

 the one described above, and the underside nearly uniform pale 

 brownish. The three specimens in the Copenhagen Museum, how- 

 ever, are uniformly brown above, with large pale spots and coarse 

 marblings on sides only. These specimens were probably received 

 from the Leiden Museum, and thus verify Schlegel's remarks in the 

 original description as follows: The system of coloration in this 

 species seems to us to be rather constant in the large number of speci- 

 mens which wg have examined. This salamander is of a slaty 

 or plumbeous color, uniform above, but varied with large whitish 

 spots confluent like marblings on the flanks and on the lower parts, 

 which often are paler or tending to yellowish. Finally, the colored 

 figure reproduced in Schlegel's " Abbildungen," pi. xxxix, fig. 4, 

 from a sketch from a living specimen, is black above with very distinct 

 irregular whitish blotches on sides of head, body, and tail, and upper 

 side of limbs. Boulenger's description of specimens in British Museum 

 having the same origin as the above is similar, ''blackish gray, lighter 

 beneath; sides variegated with light gray." 



In view of this uniformity it is difficult to understand the variation 

 in the two specimens before me, and, I may add, in a third one in 

 Science College from the same locality as ours described above. 



Habitat. — Judgmg from Siebold's preface to the reptile volume of 

 Fauna Japonica (p. xvi) he obtained the present species only in 

 Hondo and Shikoku, but not in Kiusiu. It should be noted, how- 

 ever, that von Martens (/. c.) records it as obtained at Nagasaki by 

 Doctor Pompe, and that the specimen in our museum (No. 23901) is 

 from Kumamoto, province Higo, Kiusiu. These are the only definite 

 records of locality which I have been able to find except Kyoto, as 

 given by Okada. It seems certain, however, that it is absent in Yezo. 



List of specimens of Hynobius naevius. 



Museum. 



U.S.N. M. 

 Coponh . . 



Do... 



Do... 

 Sci. Coll . 



No. 



23i)0J 

 34 

 35 

 36 



Sex and 

 age. 



Fern. ad .a 



....do. 



....do. 



....do. 



....do.fc 



Locality. 



When 

 col- 

 lected. 



Kumamoto, Kiu.siu 



"Japan" 



do 



do 



1884 



By whom 

 collected. 



Nakagavva. . 



ot3— ; 



1.96 

 1.58 

 1.67 

 1.34 

 1.18 



o Description, p. 20. 



b Figs. 17-22. 



