378 PROCEEDINaS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.49. 



tail, in the position occupied by the heavily pigmented bands in the 

 normal. They were of a pecuhar dull opaque yellow appearance, in 

 contrast with the soft, transparent orange yellow of the general 

 body color. 



The color drawing, reproduced in the plate (Plate 54), was made 

 in July, 1913. The normal drawn (Plate 55) was of almost the same 

 size and, as nearly as one could judge, of the same stage of develop- 

 ment as the albino. The artist's "high light" interfered with the 

 proper representation of the opaque line on the left side of the albino. 



The presence of the normal amount of yellow pigment and entire 

 absence of black pigment in the albino indicates in a most interesting 

 way that the black and yellowish-orange pigment in Spelerpes are 

 inherited independently of each other and that they have a different 

 chemical origin. The writers hoped to rear the albino to sexual 

 matm'ity and secure offspring from it, but although it had been taking 

 food regularly it died in August, 1913. 



An oft-repeated search in the locality where the albino was secured 

 failed to reveal other albinos. 



An albino strain of the axolotl has been reared in captivity for 

 nearly half a century. So far as the writers are aware this is the 

 only unquestioned albino urodele on record. The cave-inhabiting 

 Proteus anguineus is sometimes referred to as an albino, but it is 

 distinctly not an albino, as has been abundantly proven by the pro- 

 duction of pigment in individuals kept for some months in dayhght 

 (Zeller, '88; Vh6, '04, p. 707). Whether the pigmentless TypMo- 

 molge ratlibuni (Stejneger, '96) of the Texas underground waters is 

 an albino, in that it lacks capacity for pigment production under 

 conditions suitable for its development, has not been determined. 



In his discussion of cases of albinism in amphibians Pavesi ('79) 

 refers to some reputed but doubtful cases of albino urodeles. The 

 only case the description of which has been examined by the writers 

 is that of a Salamandra maculosa referred to by Latreille ('02, p. 220),^ 

 though this case, too, was called in question by later writers. There 

 are numerous records in the literature of so-called partial albino 

 urodeles. Many of these, however, are merely slightly pigmented 

 individuals, such as occur frequently in amphibian material reared 

 under laboratory conditions and probably have no genetic significance. 



Britcher ('99) discovered pigmentless eggs of Amhy stoma, punc- 

 tatum, but in the course of development the normal amount of pig- 

 ment was produced. Such a case is comparable to what normally 

 occurs in the development of Cryptobranchus, Spelerpes, Plethodon, 



' This Is not the original description, for as Dr. Stejneger suggests "Latreille (1802) only refers to the 

 Paduan albino Salamandra at third hand. It was apparently first described and figured in 1683 by 

 Wurffbain (Salamandrologia, pi. 2, fig. 1). In 1768 Laurenti gave this specimen a binominal appellation 

 Salamandra Candida (Syn. Rept., p. 41) quoting Wurfn:)aln. Latreille took his reference to this specimen 

 from Gmelin's Syst. Nat., 17.S9." 



