imens, representing 142 species of North American 

 reptiles and amphibians, besides many foreign spec- 

 ies. 



Literature. 

 The library of the Cincinnati Society of Natural 

 History contains as fine a collection of books on 

 herpetology as exists anywhere in the middle west. 

 In the "Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural 

 History", the "American Journal of Arts and Sci- 

 ences", the "Proceedings of the United States 

 National Museum," the "Proceedings of the Junior 

 Society of Natural Sciences", and elsewhere, will be 

 found papers dealing with the C. S. N. H. col- 

 lection of Herpetology. 



AMPHIBIA (Class). CAUDATA (Order). 

 The order Caudata comprises the salamanders, 

 Amphibians which possess the tail throughout life 

 and undergo a more or less complete metamor- 

 phosis. These animals are little known except to 

 the special student, and the popular mind groups 

 them all under the headings "Mud Puppy", "Water- 

 dog", or "Spring Lizard". Nevertheless, in North 

 America alone 85 forms occur. These are di- 

 vided into three suborders. The first of these, the 

 PROTEIDA, contains the well-known Mud-puppy 

 of the eastern U. S. and also the blind Proteus 

 of the caves at Carniola. The members of this 

 suborder retain the gills throughout life. The 



suborder MUTABILIA, comprises all the true 

 salamanders and contains 81 of the 85 



