REPTILIA—SALAMANDER. 715 
are extended, and evidently formed for rooting in the ground; the skin of 
the neck forms a sort of wrinkled collar; the color of the head is of a dark 
chesnut, and the eyes are small; the back, which is very broad, is of a light- 
ish gray, and seems covered over with a number of small eyes, which are 
round, and placed at nearly equal distances. These eyes are very different 
from what they seem; they are the animal’s eggs covered with their shells, 
and placed there for hatching. They are generated within the female, who 
drops them on the ground. The male then collects them, and deposits them 
carefully on the back of the female, where, after impregnation, they are 
pressed into the cellules, which close upon them. These eggs are buried 
deep in the skin, and in the beginning of gestation but just appear; and are 
very visible when the young animal is about to burst from its confinement 
They are of a reddish, shining yellow color; and the spaces between then, 
are full of small warts, resembling pearls. 
In this manner the pipa is seen travelling with her wondrous family on 
her back, in all the different stages of maturity. Some of the strange 
progeny, not yet come to sufficient perfection, appear quite torpid, and as yet 
without life in the egg; others seem just beginning to rise through the skin ; 
here peeping forth from the shell, and there having entirely forsaken their 
prison; some are sporting at large upon their parent’s back; and others 
descending to the ground, to try their own fortune below. 
THE SALAMANDER .! 
Tue ancients have described a lizard that is bred from heat, that lives in 
tne flames, and feeds upon fire, as its proper nourishment. It will be need- 
less to say that there is no such animal existing ; and that, above all others, 
the modern salamander has the smallest affinity to such an animal. The 
fact is, that, when the animal is exposed to fire, drops of milky fluid ooze 
through all the pores of the skin. The same circumstance, however, occurs 
whenever itis handled. This fluid appears to be of an acrid nature. 
The salamander? best known in Europe, is from eight to eleven inches 
long; usually black, spotted with yellow; and, when taken in the hand, 
feeling cold to a great degree. There are several kinds. The black water 
newt is reckoned among the number. The idle report of its being incon- 
sumable by fire, has caused many of these poor animals to be burnt; but we 
1The genus Salamandra has the body elongated ; tail long, cylindrical, or flattened ; head 
depressed ; ears concealed, and with a small cartilaginous plate upon the opening ; Jaws 
furnished with numerous small teeth, and two feneinamal rows of similar teeth on the 
Fete ; tongue short, thick, and fixed in the lower jaw; no third eyelid; feet four, with 
our toes before and five behind. 
3 Salamandra terrestris. Lin. 
