ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1471 



In the growth of language and the develop- 

 ment of biological science, it is comparatively 

 easy to trace, step by step, the slow decay of 

 this curious, long-enduring superstition whose 

 origin cannot be even guessed. 



It seems incredible that people could know 

 that the salamander was born in water and 

 made its home in or near water, and could yet 

 conceive the creature capable of sustaining life 

 and rearing its young in fire ; but they went 

 even farther, and maintained that if a fire were 

 kept steadily burning for upwards of seven 

 years, a salamander would be spontaneously 

 generated in the cinders ; though the very cold- 

 ness of its body was thought to extinguish the 

 flames. Various philosophers controverted the 

 superstition by actual experiment, but the gen- 

 erality of mankind was not to be so readily con- 

 vinced, for 



"Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast 

 To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." 



The belief was so firmly fixed that numerous 

 common objects of an inflammable sort were 

 named after the wonderful, mythical beast. 

 Large iron pokers were called salamanders, as- 

 bestos originally went by the name of Salaman- 

 der's Hair or Wool, and Yankee ingenuity gave 

 to an American fire-proof safe the suggestive 

 name of Salamander. 



By an inexplicable coincidence, the erroneous 

 ideas that the salamander was poisonous and 

 that it lived in flames, were almost invariable 

 concomitants. In the 16th century the dis- 

 tinguished French surgeon Ambroise Pare, de- 

 scribed the fire-inhabiting salamander as black, 

 variegated with yellow spots, and incorporated 

 in his medical works a figure of it, with a 

 remedy for its bite, which, if needless, was at 

 least euphonius, — turpentine, styrax, nettle- 

 seeds, and cypris-leaves. He said that Avicen- 

 na, a famous Arabian physician of the 10th cen- 

 tury, had prescribed the same antidote against 

 this kind of poison as against opium, by reason 

 of the cold nature of them both. 



There is no poisonous species of salamander 

 known on this continent, but the Spotted or 

 "Fire" Salamander, (^Salamandra maculosa), 

 found in some parts of Europe, is black with 

 yellow or orange spots, and is said to be deadly 

 to such small animals as may prey upon it. Per- 

 haps this was Fare's supposedly poisonous, fire- 

 inhabiting species. 



A reputable writer of the 17th century averred, 

 that on several occasions he had placed in the 

 fire some hair or down of the salamander until 

 it was red hot, and that, when removed and 



allowed to cool, it "yet remained perfect wool." 

 We hardly know which would be pronounced 

 the greater curiosity today — a wooly salaman- 

 der, or a wool that refused to burn. 



In view of such credulity in high places, the 

 people were, after all, pardonable. The notion 

 was so common and allusions to it so frequent 

 in the best literature, that a few quotations 

 from well known authorities will amply illus- 

 trate it: 



In Macaulay's History of England he alleges 

 that at the siege of Namur the renowned Eng- 

 lish general, Cutts, "was so much at his ease 

 amid the hottest fire of the French batteries 

 that his soldiers gave him the honorable nick- 

 name of the Salamander." 



In one of Addison's descriptions, a certain 

 person was "so encompassed with fire and 

 smoke that one would have thought that noth- 

 ing but a Salamander could have been safe in 

 such a situation." 



Sir R. Wilson, referring to the Napoleonic 

 wars, said, "I know that Buonaparte exposes 

 himself as little as possible ; not amongst his 

 other vanities believing that he is a Salaman- 

 der." 



In Shakspere's Henry IV, Falstaif, after 

 assuri:|;ig Bardolph that the latter's nose is like 

 a lan^pyn lighting their way by night from 

 taveri^ to tavern, and that it reminds him of 

 hell-fire and the Dives, "burning, burning," 

 ends by calling the nose a Salamander. 



One of the older poets quaintly writes : 



"I s£\.te too hot, yet still I did desire 

 To l^^e a Salamander in the fire. " 



Another amusingly remarks that he much pre- 

 fers fire to flpod, being by nature more of a sal- 

 amander ihs^XK a dolj)hin. 



It is true ^hat Aristotle (3d century B. C.) 

 had given credence to the popular notion — on 

 hearsay evidence, however. "The Salamander," 

 he observes, "shows that it is possible for some 

 animal substances to exist in the fire, for they 

 say that fire is extinguished when this animal 

 walks over it." What "the wisest of wise 

 Greeks" wrote, even on others' say-so, remained 

 Natural History Gospel for centuries. 



Pliny the Elder, who concluded his two books 

 of Natural History about 77 A. D., states in the 

 first that the salamander "is of cold a complex- 

 ion that if he do but touch the fire, he will 

 quench it as presently as if ice were put into it." 

 In his second book he denounces salamanders as 

 the most hurtful of all venomous beasts, worse 

 than serpents, because they were able to destroy 



