ORDER BATRACHIA. 473 



The salamander, like the viper, is ovoviparous. The 

 eggs open in the oviducts, and the young come forth fully- 

 formed. The latter, whose tail is compressed vertically, are 

 folded in two, to the number of from eight to twenty in each 

 of the five oviducts, where they are nourished by a peculiar 

 fluid, and from which they do not come until they have gone 

 through all their metamorphoses, that is, have lost their gills, 

 and acquired their feet. Then they are deposited near 

 marshes, to the number of forty, and even sometimes fifty at 

 a time. Their colour is an uniform black. 



Nothing is more erroneous than the opinion that the terres- 

 trial salamander is destitute of sex, and that each individual 

 is capable of self-reproduction, 



There are some varieties of the terrestrial salamander. One 

 remarkable one was described by Thunburg in the Memoirs 

 of the Academy of Stockholm, in 17875 under the name of 

 Lizard of Japan. It inhabits the island of Riphon, one of 

 the largest of that empire. Its colour is black, varied with 

 irregular white spots. The natives attribute to it the same 

 medical properties as to the skink, and consider its flesh as a 

 powerful stimulant and an energetic remedy. The shops in 

 the neighbourhood of Jeddo are consequently filled with sala- 

 manders of this kind, suspended to the ceilings, and dried. 



With respect to the divisions of the Aquatic Salaman- 

 ders, we have but few observations to make. They are ex- 

 ternally distinguished from the land salamanders by having 

 a compressed, not a rounded tail ; but in all the main points 

 of anatomical conformation, they agree. They have been 

 rendered celebrated by the experiments of Spallanzani 

 on their astonishing faculty of reproducing parts which have 

 been removed, and those, too, with all their peculiar bones, 

 muscles, vessels, &c. They have been caught in the ice, and 

 remained there a long time without perishing. The eggs 

 are fecundated by the males in the water, and come forth in 



