GIGANTIC SALAMANDER. 225 



first specimen that has ever reached Europe alive. It is. a most 

 ungainly looking beast, with a broad flattened head, a vertical 

 fin-like tail, and a warty scrofulous skin mottled over with black 

 and brown. The uninitiated public seem to be a little perplexed 

 at finding it in water ; and from hearing it spoken of as a Sala- 

 mander, seem to have a confused notion that the proper place for 

 it would be a good roasting fire. One lady, who was evidently 

 mystified in this fashion, remarked to a companion, as we stood 

 by, that she thought it was " extremely doubtful about its going 

 through the fire," but as she was by no means clear on the 

 point, and would not commit herself, she wisely kept to what 

 she could see, and finished up with the safe position, " It is in 

 water now, at any rate." The tmth is, the Sieboldia is first 

 cousin to our own little Water-Newt, being, like it, an aquatic 

 Salamander, and having nothing to do, therefore, with the re- 

 nowned little fire-eater whose marvellous history has already been 

 given. 



To the geologist the animal is one of unusual interest. It is 

 the nearest existing representative of the famous Homo D-iluvii 

 Testis of Scheuchzer, who, having a kind of monomania on the 

 subject of an universal deluge, was unwearied in collecting organic 

 remains in support of his opinions. The discovery of this fossil 

 Salamander was a perfect godsend to the poor enthusiast. He 

 had no doubt whatever that it was a veritable anthropolite, the 

 petrified remains of one of the accursed race that was swept away 

 by the flood. It seems unaccountable now that such an opinion 

 should have gained any currency amongst men of science, but 

 Scheuchzer's own perfect confidence begat a like faith in others, 

 and for many years this fossil skeleton of a Salamander was an 

 European celebrity, and the great pillar of the popular faith in an 

 universal deluge. It was left to Cuvier to determine the true 

 nature of the animal whose remains had attracted so much atten- 

 tion. The rounded head and the large size of the orbits of the 

 eyes satisfied him that the animal was a Batrachian ; and when, 

 in 1811, he obtained permission to work upon the stone contain- 

 ing the far-famed remains, for the purpose of uncovering any bones 

 which might be still hidden, he placed before the operators the 

 figure of the skeleton of a Salamander ; and he relates with what 

 pleasure they saw the bones corresponding to those in the figure 

 make their appearance as the chisel chipped away piece after 



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