INTRODUCTION. 635 
greedily devoured eight additional ones. It eats worms and insects of 
eVery kind, but prefers bees and wasps. It will not touch a dead ani- 
mal, even though just killed, but waits for its prey to stir before seizing 
it. On taking bees and wasps, instead of swallowing them immediately, 
it presses them between its jaws until death occurs, and thus avoids 
their sting. 
When an insect drops before a toad at rest, the latter immediately 
arouses from its torpor, and with animation moves towards its prey. It 
halts, pointer-like, at a proper distance, and finally with lightning-like 
swiftness darts out its tongue and brings the animal into its mouth. A 
miss of its mark is not followed by a second attempt until the insect 
begins to move. 
As these animals hybernate, are cold blooded and sluggish, they can go 
for a long time without food. Hallowell kept a Proteus anguinus thir- 
teen months without nourishment, and, so far as observed, the animal 
suffered no inconvenience. And yet there is a limitation to their 
powers of endurance. The stories so often repeated about finding them 
immured in rocks cannot be sustained; in all these cases probably some 
cavity, by which they had entered when small, and through which they 
continued to receive air and food, had probably been overlooked. At all 
events it has been experimentally proved that toads cannot live twelve 
months when deprived of air, nor two years without food. 
In regard to the tailed Amphibians, they are all insectivorous, Spelerpes 
porphyriticus having been observed in the very act of eating flies, while 
the contents of the stomach in others leaves no doubt as to their diet. 
Thus, in Notophthalmus viridescens or Crimson Triton was found insects, 
spiders, physa, and lymnea; in Plethodon erythronotus were small mollusks ; 
while in Spelerpes ruber or Red Salamander occured worms, elytra of beetles, 
and the remains of other salamanders. In like manner Salamandra 
maculosa has been shown to eat flies, beetles, young snails, and worms. 
Menobranchus lateralis undoubtedly feeds upon Annelids and Libellula 
larve, while Menopoma alleghaniensis, the Alleghany Hellbender eats 
worms, fish, crawfish, and the like. 
Lizards are insectivorous, though as to their additional articles of diet 
the writer as yet has no information. 
Turtles undoubtedly vary in their food. Cistudo inte has been seen 
to eat insects and an Agaric or mushroom ; the Green and Gopher Tur- 
tles are vegetarian, the latter being fond of sweet potatoes, melons, and 
bulbous roots, and injuring gardens; Chrysemys picta, the Painted Tur- 
tle, and Nanemys guttatus, the Spotted Tortoise, eat worms, insects, frogs, 
aquatic reptiles, and probably also the water plantain ; Chelydra serpentina, 
