716 REPTILIA—SALAMANDER. 
cannot say as philosophical martyrs; since scarce any philosopher would 
think it necessary to make the experiment. When thrown into the fire, the 
animal is seen to burst with the heat of its situation, and to eject its fluids. 
We are gravely told in the Philosophical Transactions, that this is a method 
the animal! takes to extinguish the flames. 
The whole of the lizard kind are so tenacious of life, that they will live 
several hours after the loss of the head; they also sustain the want of food 
in a surprising manner. One of them, brought from the Indies, lived nine 
months without any other food than what it received from licking a piece of 
earth, on which it was brought over; another was kept by Seba, in an 
empty phial, for six months, without any nourishment; and Redi talks of 
a large one, brought from Africa, that lived for eight months, without taking 
any nourishment whatever. Indeed, as many of this kind, both salaman- 
ders and lizards, are torpid, or nearly so, during the winter, the loss of their 
appetite for so long a time is the less surprising. If wetted with vinegar, 
however, or sprinkled with powdered salt, the animal soon dies in convuls 
sions. 
