OX COLOUR-CHANGES OF THE SPOTTED SALAMANDER. 99 



4. Experiments on Colour-changes of the Spotted Sala- 

 mander (Salamandra maculosa), conducted in the 

 Society's Gardens. By E. G. Boulenger, F.Z.S. 

 (Curator of: Reptiles). 



[Received October 29, 1920 ; Read March 8, 1921.] 



(Plates I. & II. : Text figure 1.) 



The remarkable experiments conducted in recent years at the 

 Biologische Versuchs-anstalt, Vienna, by Kammerer on the 

 action of modified environment on certain Batrachians have 

 attracted much attention, and a good deal of criticism. Prof. E. 

 W. MacBride, F.R.S., to whom I am indebted for much help 

 and advice, suggested to me last year that an attempt to repeat 

 the experiments conducted by Kammerer with the Spotted 

 Salamander (Salamandra macidosa), on the correlation between 

 the coloration and the conditions under which Salamanders may 

 be subjected to, would be of special interest. According to 

 Kammerer, an increase of the bright colour takes place on a 

 yellow soil, especially when the animals are kept in terraria 

 coloured yellow in such a manner that yellow rays of light fall 

 on the Salamanders, whilst the reverse takes place when they 

 are kept in the dark on black humus. Further, he claimed to 

 have succeeded in the extremely difficult task of inducing his 

 Salamanders, which he kept under the above conditions, to breed 

 in captivity, and states that the offspring inherited the characters 

 of their parents, being yellower or blacker than the normal, 

 according to the surroundings in which the first generation had 

 been placed. Daring the past year I have been keeping under 

 conditions similar to those referred to by Kammerer a large 

 number of Salamanders received from the French Jura, thanks to 

 the kindness of Mme. Phisalix of the Pasteur Institute, but it 

 is as yet too early to expect any striking changes, and the 

 present paper deals with the results obtained by repeating 

 certain experiments conducted by Kammerer's pupil, Secerov, 

 who kept Salamander larva? in aquaria under yellow or black 

 conditions*. Secerov unfortunately started his experiments with 

 only four larva?, the offspring of a Salamander of the variety 

 tceniata. Two of these larva? were placed in an aquarium 

 coloured yellow and two in an aquarium coloured black. • The 

 results he obtained were as follows : — 



That Salamanders kept in yellow surroundings when in 

 the larval stage were on transformation yellower than their 

 mother : that the spots were larger and had a tendency to 

 fuse together. 



That the reverse takes place when Salamander larvae are 

 kept in black surroundings, the transformed animal being 

 darker than the mother : that the spots are smaller and 

 more numerous. 



* ' Biologiscb.es Centralblatt,' 1914. 



