THE CCECILIANS OR WORM-LIKE AMPHIBIANS 



2677 



inhabits the Southeastern United States, may be compared to a snake furnished 

 with a pair of short fore-legs and external gills; and is especially distinguished by 

 the presence of three pairs of 

 gill openings on the sides of 

 the neck and the four- toed feet. 

 The smooth skin is either 

 uniformly blackish, or marked 

 with small white dots, and the 

 total length reaches to as much 

 as twenty-eight inches. The 

 Georgian two-legged salaman- 

 der (Pseudobranchus striatus}, 

 on the other hand, has only a 

 single pair of gill openings on 

 the neck, and but three toes to 

 the feet. These salamanders 

 are stated to frequent swampy 

 localities, especially pools of 

 water beneath the roots of old 

 trees, up the stems of which 



they will sometimes climb. A living example was received in England in 1825, 

 where it lived till 1831. This specimen was fond of coming out of the water to 

 rest on sand or among moss; and in summer ate worms, tadpoles, and various 

 other small creatures, but became torpid from the middle of October till the 

 end of April. That these salamanders can breathe entirely by means of their 

 lungs, is proved by a specimen in an aquarium whose gills had been eaten off 

 by a fish. 



SIREN SALAMANDER. 



THE CCECILIANS OR WORM-LIKE AMPHIBIANS 

 Order APODA 



The remarkable worm-like and blind amphibians forming this group are gen- 

 erally regarded as the representatives of a distinct order; although they are consid- 

 ered by Professor Cope to be merely a degraded branch of the Tailed Amphibians, 

 to which they are allied through the fish-like salamanders. Be this as it may, the 

 group is readily distinguished by the total absence of limbs, and the general worm- 

 like appearance of the head and body; the tail being either rudimental or wanting. 

 In the skull the frontal bones are distinct from the parietals, but the palatines are 

 fused with the maxillse. As regards their reproduction, these amphibians differ 

 from the newts and salamanders in that the two sexes come together in the ordinary 

 manner. Some of them are peculiar in having overlapping scales embedded in the 

 skin, like fishes; and in all the eyes are either wanting, or are so deeply buried 

 beneath the skin as to be entirely useless. The whole of the members of the group 



