68 THE SALAMANDER. 



orange-yellow. Its general length is seven or eight' 

 inches, though sometimes it becomes much larger. 



Whilst the hardest bodies are unable to resist the 

 action of fire, the generality of mankind have given 

 full credit to the ridiculous stories that have for acres 

 been circulated of this little Lizard, not only being 

 able to withstand its effects, but even to extinguish 

 it. So small an animal, possessing such very supe- 

 rior privileges, that furnished so. many objects of* 

 comparison to poetry, so many pretty emblems to 

 love, and so many brilliant devices to valour, seems 

 to have agreeably laid hold on the imaginations of 

 men in such a manner that they were unwilling to 

 retract their belief, and therefore contented them- 

 selves with the traditions, without having their 

 curiosity sufficiently roused to satisfy themselves by 

 immediate experiment. The ancients, pretending 

 that it owed its existence to the purest of elements, 

 called it the Daughter of Fire, giving it, at the 

 same time, a body of ice. The moderns adopted 

 the ridiculous tales oi the ancients ; and, as it is 

 difficult to stop when once the bounds of probabi- 

 lity have been passed, some writers have gone so 

 far as to assert that the most violent fire could be 

 extinguished by the Salamander: in the most raging 

 conflagration, it has been said, if one of these small 

 Lizards was but thrown in, its progress would be 

 immediately checked. It was not till after the 

 light of science was diffused abroad that the world 

 began to discredit this wonderful property. Expe- 

 riment then proved what reason alone might, long 

 before, have demonstrated. 



