454 THE NATURAL HISTORY REYIEW. 



dead the next day, and the female has not "been heard of since. The 

 one that was shot dead charged most furiously. Lions had not been 

 heard of in that part of the country for at least thirty years." In 

 the early part of the sixteenth century the Mogul Emperor Baber 

 mentions that the wild Elephant, the Ehinoceros, the wild Buffalo, 

 and the Lion, inhabited the Benares district. Within the present 

 century the Lion inhabited the N.W. parts of Hindustan, from 

 Buhawulpur and Sindh to at least the Jumna (about Delhi), south- 

 ward as far as Khaudeish, and in Central India the Sagur and 

 Nerbudda territories, and so far west as Palamow ; but the supposed 

 " Bengal Lion " of Bennett's Tower Menagerie was from Hurriana. 

 The particulars of the capture of that individual are given somewhere 

 in the old Bengal Sporting Magazine. — E. Bltth. 



4. Eeprodtjction of the Axolotl (Siredon mexicanus). 



Although the Axolotl {Siredon mexicanus) has been long 

 known to Naturalists, and its anatomy has been well described by 

 Cuvier, we have hitherto had no information concerning the repro- 

 duction of this singular Batrachian. The want of this knowledge, 

 and the great resemblance of the Sn-edon to the larval form of 

 Ambijstoma has caused it to be regarded by Professor Baird* and 

 Dr. Grayt as probably only the larva of some gigantic species of 

 the latter genus. Eecent observations made in the Jardin des 

 Plantes at Paris have now, however, solved all doubts upon this 

 point. Numerous specimens of the Siredon were obtained by the 

 Jardin d'Acclimatation from Mexico in the course of last year, and 

 some of these having been transferred to the Jardin des Plantes 

 have bred in the tanks of the reptile-house of that establish- 

 ment during the past spring. M. Auguste Dumeril has carefully 

 watched the development of the ova in this Batrachian, and has 

 given an account of the phenomena observed in a recent number of 

 the Comptes Bendus,J which he promises to supplement by future 

 observations. The egg of Siredon, like that of all batrachians yet 

 observed, consists at first of a black vitelline sphere placed in the 

 centre of a second sphere, which constitutes the vitelline membrane, 

 and which is as clear as crystal ; this, in its turn, being enclosed 

 within an envelope of an albuminous character. The earlier phases of 



* J. A. n. S. Phil. 1849, p. 292. 



f Catalogue of Amphibia, part ii. p. 49. 



X C. R. LX., No. 16, p. 765, (April, 1865). 



