410 CLASS REPTILIA. 



as never having gills, but it is probable that they have 

 them, as soon as our terrestrial salamander ; others, 

 on the contrary, preserve them all their lives, which 

 does not prevent them from having lungs like the 

 batracians, so that they may be regarded as the 

 only vertebrated animals, which are truly amphi- 

 bious.* 



Among the first (those in which no gills are visi- 

 ble) we arrange two genera : 



The Menopoma, Harlan.f 



Which have altogether the form of the salamander : 

 apparent eyes, feet well developed, and an orifice 

 on each side of the neck. Beside the range of 

 teeth around the jaws, they have a parallel range 

 on the front of the palate. 



Such is the reptile a long time named. 



The Great Salamander of North America, (Salaman- 

 dra Gigantia, Barton. Hellbender of the United 

 States. An. of the Lyce. of New York, I. pi. I7.) 



Fifteen to eighteen inches long, of a blackish blue. 



• The simultaneous existence and action of the branchial tufts and the 

 lungs in these animals, can no more be contested than the most certain 

 facts in natural history. I have under my eyes the lungs of a siren three 

 feet long, in which the vascular apparatus is as developed and as com- 

 plicated, as in any reptile ; and, nevertheless, this siren had its gills as 

 complete as the others. 



f Dr. Harlan had first named these Abranchus ; Leukard and Fitzin- 

 ger, Cryptobkanchus; others, Proton qpsis. 



