402 



SOUTHERN EUROPE 



01m. 



A kind of halo of romance encircles the olin (Proteus anyn ineus), 

 the sole European representative of a group of salamanders furnished 

 with persistent feather-like external gills. This remarkable creature is found only 

 in the subterraneous waters of Carniola, Carinthia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. It is 

 about 10 inches long, with an eel-like body, a rather broad head, long snout 

 truncated in front, small eyes, three pairs of bright red bunches of gills, and two 

 gill-slits on each side. The legs are very short and thin, with three toes in front 



and two behind. The colour varies 



from white to brownish and even 



black when exposed to light. 



Among the peculiarities of the 



olm. the eyes deserve special 



notice : they are completely covered 



by skin, looking like blackish spots 



about the size of a pin's head, 



shining through the skin in the 



young, but invisible in the adult 



stage. They develop like the eyes ~ 



of other vertebrates, but the lens the olm. 



gradually disappears till finally 



there remains only the vitreous humour, which originally filled the space between 



the lens and the retina. 



Olms live in running water in the caves and are by no means so sluggish as 

 they sometimes appear in confinement. They are cpiick in their movements and, 

 propelling themselves with their tails, swim so fast that they are by no means 

 easy to catch. Moreover, they are far from sluggish even in captivity; and so 

 long as they receive sufficient food swim about at night, especially in spring, when 

 they are often so lively that the splashing of the water may be heard in an 

 adjacent room. They feed on toad-spawn, worms, tadpoles, small molluscs, 



