1472 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



FIRE INHABITING SALAMANDER. 

 Figured by Ambroise Pare, l^sa. 



whole nations by poisoning everything they 

 touched ; and he solemnly affirmed that did they 

 but touch kindling wood, afterwards used to 

 bake bread with, all who ate the bread would 

 "catch their bane by it." Now the serpents, he 

 explains, would not kill many together, and 

 would harm but once, being so conscience- 

 stricken after biting a man that they would "die 

 for very grief and sorrow that they have done 

 such a mischief." Despite these thrilling as- 

 sertions, it is only fair to say that in all likeli- 

 hood Pliny never consciously aspired to the 

 office of father of the "nature fakirs." 



A little later, Dioscorides, a Greek physician, 

 announced that he had "cast many a Salaman- 

 der into the fire for trial," and found them 

 falsely reputed not to be burnt thereby. 



Galen in the 2d century A. D., and also one 

 Matthiolus, mentioned by early writers, refuted 

 the theory on their own experiments. 



Thousands upon thousands of these defense- 

 less little animals were destined to be thus im- 

 molated ere the extraordinary belief regarding 

 their immunity to heat was generally over- 

 thrown. 



Francis Ficon, in the 16th century, harking 

 back to Aristotle over the heads of Galen, Dios- 

 corides, Matthiolus, and we know not how many 

 others, declared it to be an old, "received tra- 

 dition, that the Salamander liveth in the fire 

 and hath force to extinguish it:" 



It was not until the 17th century that the 

 superstition began to weaken'; and the gradual 

 stages of its decline are interesting to follow. 



In reviewing chronologically the accepted 

 definitions of the word salamander, it is neces- 

 sary to reflect that lizards, which are today class- 

 ified as reptiles, were formerly associated with 

 salamanders — now grouped with the amphibi- 

 ans. The word amphibian, at present used al- 

 most exclusively with reference to animals nor- 

 mally passing through a gilled stage, and later 

 developing lungs and living both on land and 

 in water, was formerly employed more com- 

 monly to signify a creature that lived in and 



partook of any two elements or states of being; 

 Sir Thomas Browne, in 1643, referring to man 

 as "that great and true Amphibian," because he 

 was wont to live in the visible world of sense 

 and the invisible world of reason. In early zoo- 

 logical classifications, all creatures that could 

 live in the water or out of it were styled am- 

 phibians, — a definition broad enough to embrace, 

 among other forms, crabs, frogs, alligators, and 

 seals, divided by modern zoology into the four 

 distinct groups of crustaceans, amphibians, rep- 

 tiles, and mammals. The salamander remained 

 a "reptile" until quite recent times, largely by 

 reason of its external resemblance to the lizards. 



Blount, in his Glossograpliia of 1670, defined 

 salamander as "A quadruped beast, in shape 

 like a lizard, full of spots. It will for a time 

 resist a flame until its moisture be consumed, 

 but not live in or quench the fire as some author- 

 ities have affirmed." 



Fifty-four years later Cocker's English Dic- 

 tionary described the salamander as "A beast 

 like a lizard, so cold by nature that it will live 

 awhile in the flames." 



To Bailey's Dictionarium Brittanicum, pub- 

 lished in 1730, belongs the honor of having dealt 

 the first far-reaching and really vital blow to 

 this dogged superstition. His definition was, 

 "Salamander, a spotted creature; commonly but 

 erroneously supposed to breed and subsist in 

 the hottest fire and to quench it." 



There was very little backsliding after this 

 good stroke. By the time Ash published his 

 English Dictionary in 1775 — the same j^ear 

 Johnson published his — a salamander had be- 

 come "A fabulous animal, supposed to have 

 lived in the fire and to have been exceedingly 

 poisonous." 



Johnson says, "An animal supposed to live 

 in the fire and imagined to be very poisonous ; 

 but there is no such creature, the name being 

 now given to a poor, harmless insect." ( !) 



Subsequent dictionaries — Sheridan's, 1789; 

 Browne's, 1806; Nares', 1859; Nuttall's, 1869 



FIRE SALAMANDER iSALAMANDRA MACULOSA) 

 From Standard Naiural History. 



