THE ALPINE FAUNA. 319 



also we have to deal with an Asiatic genus which 

 spread eastward to America, and westward to Europe. 

 As regards the Reptiles, there are no peculiar 

 Alpine forms, but among the Amphibia some species 

 deserve to be mentioned. Up to an elevation of 

 10,000 feet we find in the Alps the Black Salamander 

 (Salamandra atra}\ and it is apparently quite peculiar 

 to them, never having been observed in the plains. 

 The handsome black and yellow Salamander (Sala- 

 mandra mac^llosa} so well known as a terrarium 

 specimen likewise occurs in the Alps, and it has 

 besides a fairly wide distribution in Europe. It is 

 known from Southern Germany, the Pyrenees, Spain, 

 Portugal, Sardinia, Corsica, Greece, Syria, and Algiers. 

 A third species (S. caucasicd) inhabits the Caucasus. 

 The evidence of distribution here points emphatically 

 to an Alpine origin of the genus Salamandra. We 

 cannot tell where the ancestors of Salamandra may 

 have come from, but several other genera of Sala- 

 mandridcz are certainly Asiatic. Our common Newt 

 (Molge vnlgaris] belongs to a genus with nineteen 

 species, several of which are peculiar to Europe. The 

 general range of the genus, however, extends to North 

 America, and it is more probable therefore that it 

 originated in Asia. If so, it certainly must have 

 passed into Europe at a very early date. Let us 

 assume the first Molges to have traversed the ^Egean 

 Sea on terra firma to Greece in miocene times, they 

 might thus have been able to travel straight on to 

 the old Tyrrhenian continent of which Corsica and 



