1901.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 503 



PECULIARITIES OF THE TERRESTRIAL LARVA OF THE URODELOUS 

 BATRACHIAN, PLETHODON CINEREUS Green. 



BY THOMAS H. MONTGOMERY, JR., PH.D. 



To the -writer's knowledge no description has been published of 

 the larval stage of this strictly terrestrial species, which occurs 

 through the United States of America east of the Mississippi river. 

 Cope^ states: " Its habits are entirely terrestrial, as it is never, 

 even in the larval stage, found in the water. It is abundant under 

 stones and logs in the forests everywhere, and does not occur in 

 open fields. The eggs are laid in a little package beneath a stone 

 in a damp place. When the young emerge they are provided with 

 branchiae, but these soon vanish, and they are often found in this 

 young stage apparently quite developed." I have collected several 

 hundred individuals near West Chester, Pa., at all seasons of the 

 year, and have never found, them in streams or boggy places, but 

 most generally in woods on hillsides at varying elevations above 

 water-courses, sometimes several hundred feet from any water, and 

 occasionally in open fields and hillsides which in the summer season 

 become very dry. For the most part they are found beneath wood 

 and stones, and even in mid -winter may be found in these places, 

 though at that time generally deeper in the ground than in summer. 



This being, then, such a strictly terrestrial species, it was to be 

 anticipated that its larval stage would show deviations from the 

 larvse of the other Urodelea which develop in the water. In July 

 ■of the present year I found five eggs of Plethodon einereus under a 

 stone, and curled around them, on guard, an adult which dissection 

 proved to be a female; these ova were larval stages, and the exam- 

 ination of them showed many interesting modifications, as follows: 



The eggs are relatively very large for the size of the species, and. 

 •each enclosed in gelatinous envelopes. Active movements of the 

 heads and tails of the larvae could be observed within the innermost 

 membrane. But the striking peculiarity, even to the naked eye, 



i"The Batrachia of North America," Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 34, 

 1889. 



