94 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



very often they are captured in hand dip-nets, or even thrown out 

 of a shallow drain or bayou with a stick. They are most often 

 seen after heavy rains, when their usual places of resort are 

 flooded over. Usually when taken they are at once dispatched 

 and wantonly mutilated, so great is the detestation in which they 

 are held by the people of the South. They are extremely te- 

 nacious of life, and may be cut all to bits, and still move after 

 the lapse of half an hour.* 



Before passing to the consideration of the next group, I would 

 say that many recent writers place both of the Urodela noted 

 above, in the same genus as A. means, the Two-fingered, and A. 

 tridactylum, the Three-fingered siren; the latter being the species 

 I have described. We stand much in need of full descriptions 

 of the life-histories and morphology of our other United States 

 Urodela. 



If now the question be asked. What is a salamander? that is, 

 the representative of the next group of these Urodela it may be 

 said that all sorts of opinions in history, both past and present, 

 have been entertained as to what the nature of a salamander is. 

 Aristotle, who wrote when science w r as comparatively in its in- 

 fancy, believed that there were some animals so constituted 

 that they were incombustible. In proof of this he cited the sal- 

 amander, which, " when it walks through fire, extinguishes it." 

 .Elian, too, evidently believed this to be the case, and although 

 he is careful to state that salamanders are not born of fire, nor 

 is that their natural habitat, yet when the bellows of the forger 

 fails to quicken the flame on his forge, there is a salamander near, 

 and the only remedy is to find and destroy it. Pliny, another 

 sage of early time, firmly declared that the saliva of a sala- 

 mander applied to any part of the body whatever would cause 

 the hair to fall out ; consequently we find Dioscorides referring 

 to prepared salamander oil to be used as a depilatory. According 

 to Pliny, too, the salamander was of cold complexion, and had 

 the power of emitting a cold, venom-like aconite, but of such a 

 virulent nature that it poisoned the wood of trees over which the 

 animal crept, and bread baked with such timber would kill who- 

 ever ate of it. WTiat was mythical and fabulous in the writings 

 of the early authors, passed down w r ith medieval history as act- 

 ual beliefs beliefs strongly impregnated with similar absurd- 



* In Science (Vol 2. No. 27, Aug. 10, 1883, pp. 159-163). I have given rather full'noteB upon the 

 anatomy of <1f. fri<l<i<-li/lii/t, with still more on its habits than I am enabled to present here. Its skull 

 and other parts of its skeleton are also there figured. 



