40 



THE AQUAEIUM, APKIL, 1893. 



The Kqukriutvt. 



A Quarterly Magazine. 



50 cts. a Tear. Single Copies, 15 cts. Ea,ch. 

 Sample Copies Tree. 



Advertising Rates on Application. 



HUGO MULERTT, Publisher, 

 173 Nostrand Av., Brooklyn, N. Y. 



SALAMANDERS. 



Owing to the nocturnal habits and the 

 peculiar localities which most salaman- 

 ders frequent, a great deal of mystery 

 has surrounded this class of animals 

 during all ages. The ancient Greeks 

 believed they could live in fire, the 

 moist skin of the animal, which is at 

 all times icy cold to the touch, seemed 

 to prove that, and even now it has not 

 been entirely dissipated. Many people 

 of the present age are simple enough to 

 believe that these innocent animals are 

 fire-proof. 



The love of the marvelous, fostered 

 by ignorant appeals to superstition, has 

 gone farther than this. It has been 

 asserted that the hottest fire becomes 

 extinguished when a salamander is 

 thrown into it. In the " Middle Ages" 

 this notion was held by most people, 

 and it would have been dangerous to 

 gainsay it. Salamanders were necessary 

 animals in the conjurations of sorcerers 

 and witches ; accordingly painters, 

 among their symbolic emblems, repre- 

 sented them as capable of resisting suc- 

 cessfully the most powerful heat. 



Naturalists and philosophers have 

 taken the trouble to prove by exjjeri- 

 ments the absurdity of these tales. 



The salamander is a close relative to 

 the common frog, in fact we may call 

 it a frog with an elongated body and a 

 tail. Frogs and salamanders form the 



order Batrachians, of which the former 

 are the tailless and the latter the tailed 

 representatives. 



Because salamanders resemble in 

 their shape a lizard, they are often sup- 

 posed to be a lizard, and called water- 

 lizards. Nothing is more incorrect than 

 this. There is as little relationshijJ 

 between a lizard and a salamander as 

 there is, for instance, between a bat 

 and a swallow — both of these can fly ; 

 catch insects for food ; one is of noc- 

 turnal habits and the other is not, but 

 still each belongs to an entirely differ- 

 ent order of the animal kingdom. Sal- 

 amander and lizard both walk on four 

 legs ; feed on insects or worms ; the 

 former are of nocturnal habits, fre- 

 quenting cool, moist, dark localities, 

 or even the water, while the latter 

 abound in dry, warm places, and catch 



E^g two days ))efore hatching. Larva two weeks 

 from the egg, showing the development of the front 

 legs, and larva four weeks old. (Life size. J 



their food in the bright sunshine. But 

 the main points in which they differ 

 from each other, and which can be seen 

 easily by any casual observer, aside 

 from their anatomical structure, are : 

 that the skin of the lizard is covered 

 with scales, like the skin of a snake ; 

 while that of the salamander is naked 

 and moist, like that of a frog ; that the 

 toes of the former have claws like a 

 bird, while those of the latter have none. 



