OF SELBORNE 41 



spawn of the female. How wonderful is the oeconomy of Provi- 

 dence with regard to the limbs of so vile a reptile ! While it is 

 an aquatic it has a fish-like tail, and no legs : as soon as the legs 

 sprout, the tail drops off as useless/ and the animal betakes 

 itself to the land ! 



Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances that the 

 rana arborea is an English reptile ; it abounds in Germany and 

 Switzerland. 



It is to be remembered that the salamandra aquatica of Ray 

 (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, 

 and is often caught on his hook. I used to take it for granted 

 that the salamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, and died, in the 

 water. But John Ellis, Esq. F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis) asserts, 

 in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th, ]?66, in 

 his account of the mud inguana, an amphibious tripes from South 

 Carolina, 2 that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the 

 land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to 

 misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own words. 

 Speaking of the opercula or coverings to the gills of the mud 

 inguana, he proceeds to say that "The form of these pennated 

 " coverings approach very near to what I have some time ago 

 " observed in the larva or aquatic state of our English lacerta, 

 " known by the name of eft, or newt ; which serve them for 

 " coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim with while in this 

 " state ; and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, 

 " when they change their state and become land animals, as I have 

 "observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself." 



Linnceus, in his Systema Natures, hints at what Mr. Ellis advances 

 more than once. 



Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one 

 venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and 

 that is the viper. As you propose the good of mankind to be an 

 object of your publications, you will not omit to mention common 

 sallad-oil as a sovereign remedy against the bite of the viper. As 

 to the blind worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in 

 sunder with a small blow), I have found, on examination, that it 



1 [The tadpole's tail does not drop off, but is absorbed and shrinks.] 



2 [The Siren lacertina of Linnaeus. Some of the elder naturalists took this to be 

 the tadpole of some salamander, but it is now known to retain its gills throughout 

 life. These gills are the "opercula" or "pennated coverings" mentioned in the 

 text. They are true external gills, like those of the fresh-hatched tadpole, and are 

 not used as fins by any amphibian.] 



