3io 



NEWTS AND SALAMANDERS. 



useless. The whole of the members of the group are burrowing in their habits ; 

 and in the adult state are completely terrestrial, laying eggs from which are 

 developed gilled tadpoles that do not take to the water till some time after birth. 

 The fourteen genera into which the group has been divided may all be included in 

 the single family Cosciliidce. Geographically, these amphibians are spread over 

 the Indian region, Africa south of the Sahara, and Central and South America ; 

 but it is not a little remarkable that they are quite unknown in Madagascar, 

 although two species occur in the Seychelles. 



They may be divided into two main groups, from the presence or absence of 

 scales in the skin ; two of the best known representatives of the group in which 

 scales are developed, at least in some portion of the body, being the Oriental 

 Ichthyophis and the South American Ccecilia ; one of the species of the latter 

 genus being represented in our illustration. The common Cingalese species 

 (Ichthyophis glutinosus), which ranges from Ceylon and the Eastern Himalaya to 



A WORM-LIKE AMPHIBIAN, Cacilia (liat. SlZej. 



Sumatra and Java, inhabits damp situations, and usually burrows in soft mud. 

 In some hollow near the water, the female (which measures about 15 inches in 

 length), lays a cluster of very large eggs, round which she coils her body, and 

 proceeds to brood them after the manner of a python. After the young are 

 hatched out they remain in the egg-moss until they have lost their external gills, 

 after which they take to the water, to lead for a time an aquatic life. During this 

 stage of their existence the head is fish-like, with large lips, and the eyes better 

 developed than in the adult ; and they have a gill-opening on each side of the 

 neck, and the tail is distinctly defined, much compressed, and furnished both above 

 and below with fin. Of the group without scales, the genus Gegenophis is from 

 Southern India, Siphonops from Tropical America, and Typhlonectes and Chthoner- 

 petum from South America. 



