THE BULLFROG 



109 



pical America, while the rest inhabit the northern portion 

 of the Old World. Thus the order of newts is an order 

 almost entirely confined to the northern hemisphere, 

 whence a few struggle southward along the eastern 

 Asiatic mountains or the Andes. China and Japan 

 being the part of Asia nearest North America, are, as 

 might be expected, rather rich in the number of their 

 species. But it is not merely oi' mainly by the numbers 

 of species that it contains that North America is thus 



Fig. 28. 



THE AMPHIUMA. 



distinguished. The singular interest of some of the 

 forms peculiar to it is even yet more striking. The 

 absolutely largest species is, however, found in Japan, 

 where it sometimes attains the length of six feet. A 

 closely allied species is found in northern China, and 

 during the tertiary period one also inhabited Europe. 

 Its remains were discovered in the early days of geolo- 

 gical science, and were taken to be the skeleton of a child, 

 a victim of Noah's deluge. A much smaller representa- 

 tion of the Japanese giant eft is found in all the tribu- 

 taries of the Mississippi and the streams of Louisiana, as 

 well as in North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and 



