362 



NA TURA L HIS TOR Y 



one to take one end, and the other the other extremity. Each swallows its 

 portion until at last the noses meet, and then begins a wonderful gymnas- 

 tic exhibition. They tug and pull and turn one another over and over ; 

 the advantage now rests with one, and again the star of the other is in the 

 ascendant. So it goes on, sometimes for hours, until at last the meat gives 

 way, or one of the animals succeeds in pulling the strip from the mouth 

 and stomach of its fellow. 



Interesting from another point of view is the capacity these forms have 

 of repairing injuries. One may cut off the entire foot, and in a short time 

 it will be reproduced in miniature, and after a longer lapse of time it will 



Fig. 333. — Pleurodeles, showing the ribs perforating the skin. 



acquire the size of its fellow. It is even said that a partial extirpation of 

 the eye will be repaired in the same way. 



Of our more common salamanders but little need be said. Some of 

 them live in the water (these are commonly called tritons, newts, or efts 

 — corrupted into evets), and some in moist places on the land. By 

 common superstition many, if not all, are regarded as poisonous, but this 

 is erroneous. One of the European species, a large, yellow-spotted form, is 

 celebrated from the story, older than the Christian era, that it can with- 

 stand fire. Thousands and thousands have been immolated to test the 

 truth of the tale, and just so many times has its falsity been exposed. 

 Still the story lives, and the writer once heard a man deliberately affirm 



