ORDER BATRACHIA. 407 



North America, which possesses many more Sala- 

 manders than Europe, has several land ones, with 

 round tails, but without glands on the occiput.* 



The Aquatic Salamanders, Triton, Laur., 



Always preserve the tail vertically compressed, and 

 pass almost their entire life in the water. 



The experiments of Spallanzani on their astonish- 

 ing force of reproduction, have rendered them cele- 

 brated. They reshoot several times in succession 

 the same limb, when it is cut off, and that with all 

 its bones, muscles, vessels, &c. Another faculty, 

 not less singular, is that which Dufay has recog- 

 nized in them, of remaining a long time encom- 

 passed by ice, without perishing. 



Their eggs are fecundated by the milt spread in 

 the water, and which penetrates along with the 

 water into the oviductus ; they come forth in long 

 chaplets ; the young ones are excluded in fifteen 

 days after the laying, and preserve their gills a 

 longer or shorter time according to the species. 

 Modern observers have recognized many of them in 

 our country. But some doubt remains as to their 

 determinations, seeing that these animals change 



• Sal. Vencnosa, Daud. ; or Subviolacea, Barton ; Sal. Fasciata, Harl. 

 Sal. Tigrina, id,; Sal. Erythronota, id.; S. Bilbieata, id.; Sal. Rubra. 

 Daud. viii. pi. 191. f. 2; Sal. Variolata, G\\Via.ms, Sc. Nat. Philad. I.; 

 pi. xviii., fig. 1 ; and many new species. The Sal. Japonica of Hourtouin 

 Bechstein, trad, de Lacep. II., pi. 18., f. l, is very much approximating to 

 Erythronota. 



