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VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 



about three feet, live in swamps and muddy water, often invading 

 the rice fields of the Mississippi lowlands. The rather hard-shelled 

 eggs are laid in festoons and are protected by the female, which lies 

 about them in a coil. The larvae have well-developed external gills 

 and legs relatively larger than those of the adult. 



Family 2. Salamandridce. (Salamanders and Newts.) These 

 urodeles are without gills in the adult stage; maxillaries are present; 



teeth occur in both jaws; 

 eyes have movable eyelids; 

 fore and hind limbs present, 

 but sometimes much reduced. 

 Nearly three-fourths of the 

 tailed Amphibia belong to 

 this family. Only a few typi- 

 cal species can be mentioned 

 here. 



Desmognathus fuscus (Fig. 

 FIG. nO.-Desmognathus fuscus; female no) j g Qne of Qur commonest 

 with eggs in hole underground, (trom ua- . _ . 



dow, after Wilder.) American newts. It is a small 



type, about four inches 

 length, living a noctur- 

 nal life, hiding in the 

 daytime under stones or 

 concealed along the edges 

 of mountain streams. 

 The color is brown suf- 

 fused with pink and gray. 

 They are, strange to say, 

 lungless, the process of 

 respiration being carried 

 on in the skin and pos- 

 sibly also by the mucous FlQ nl ._ Spelerpes ffu8CU8f showing the posi . 

 lining of the intestine, tion and shape of the partly protruded tongue 

 The eggs are laid in a and tne tongue skeleton on the right. T, tongue; 

 , i ' i B, branchial arch; 7/, hyoid. (From Gadow, after 



bunch, each egg attached B ; rg and wieders ' heim .) 



by a string, the whole 



group looking like a bunch of toy balloons. The female lays the 

 eggs in a hole in the mud and coils her body partly about them. 

 After a period of incubation the eggs hatch and give forth larvse 



