378 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



limbs are short, thick, and fringed, and there are four fingers and five webbed toes. The total 

 length is eighteen inches to two feet. 



There is usually a specimen of a great, flat, almost triangular-headed Amphibian, which belongs 

 to this family, with glistening white tips to its toes, in a glass case filled with water in the Zoological 

 Gai'dens of London. It never seems to move, and a number of fish, supposed to be for its food, 

 swim about it with perfect unconcern. It is a large, flat, Lizard-like thing, with a great tail, flat 

 from side to side, and is nearly a yard in length. The eyes can scarcely be seen, and the dirty 

 brown-coloured skin is warty and leathery-looking. No branchial clefts can be seen, and there 

 ai-e four toes in front and five behind. There is a kind of lobe behind the feet, and others 011 the 

 sides of the toes, and a curious leathery skin fold is on the flanks of the body. The tongue is not 

 distinct, and there are numerous palatine teeth. 



It is a native of Japan, and is called after the naturalist Siebold Sieboldia (or Cryptobranchus) 

 japonica, or is included in a genus Cryptobranchus. 



ORDER APODA. 



The last Amphibians to be noticed belong to this order, and have a serpentiform body, no limbs, 

 and there are little scale-like bodies covering them, which are embedded in the soft, true skin, forming 

 transverse rings. They have the shape and method of life of the Blind-worms, and of some of the 

 small Snakes which lead a subterranean life, burrowing in the ground and eating worms and 

 insects. But their internal anatomy distinguishes them readily. They have the eyes covered with 

 skin ; but all the anatomical parts of the eye are present, and vision takes place. Their mouth is 





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SII'HONOI'S ANNULATA. 



