2678 



NEWTS, SALAMANDERS, AND CCECILIANS 



are burrowing in their habits; and in the adult state are completely terrestrial, 

 laying eggs from which are developed gilled tadpoles that do not take to the water 

 till some time after birth. The fourteen genera into which the group has been 

 divided may all be included in the single family Cceciliidce. Geographically, these 

 amphibians are spread over the Indian region, Africa, south of the Sahara, and Cen- 

 tral and South America; but it is not a little remarkable that they are quite un- 

 known in Madagascar, although two species occur in the Seychelles. 



They may be divided into two main groups, from the presence or absence of 

 scales in the skin; two of the best-known representatives of the group in which 

 scales are developed, at least in some portion of the body, being the Oriental 

 Ichthyophis and the South-American Cecilia; one of the species of the latter genus 

 being represented in our illustration. The common Cingalese species (Ichthyophis 



A WORM-LIKE AMPHIBIAN, Ctzcilia. 

 (Natural size.) 



glutinosus], which ranges from Ceylon and the Eastern Himalayas to Sumatra and 

 Java, inhabits damp situations, and usually burrows in soft mud. In some hollow 

 near the water, the female (which measures about fifteen inches in length) lays a 

 cluster of very large eggs, round which she coils her body, and proceeds to brood 

 them after the manner of a python. After the young are hatched they remain 

 in the egg moss until they have lost their external gills, after which they take to 

 the water, to lead for a time an aquatic life. During this stage of their existence 

 the head is fish-like, with large lips, and the eyes better developed than in the 

 adult; and they have a gill opening on each side of the neck, and the tail is dis- 

 tinctly defined, much compressed, and furnished both above and below with fins. Of 

 the group without scales, the genus Gegenophis is from Southern India, Siphonops 

 from tropical America, and Typhlonectes and Chthonerpetum from South America. 



