SALAMANDEES. 31 



They are found in all parts of the world, the smallest portion 

 being found in Europe, and the largest in America. Oceania is 

 chiefly supplied with the Tree Frogs. There are several curious 

 forms in Australia, and one species only is known to inhabit ISew 

 Zealand. The enormous fossil Labyrinthodon, of a remote geo- 

 logical era, is believed to have been nearly related to these 

 comparatively very diminutive Eatrachians.* 



Tailed Eatrachians, 



Sometimes called Urodeles, from ovpo., " tail," SiyXos, " manifest." 

 The constant external character which distinguishes these Amphi- 

 bians in a general manner is the presence of a tail during the 

 whole stage of their existence. Nevertheless they are subject to 

 the metamorphoses to which all the Amphibians submit. " The 

 division, therefore, of reptiles," says Professor Rymer Jones, "into 

 such as undergo metamorphoses and such as do not, is by no means 

 philosophical although convenient to the zoologist, for all reptiles 

 undergo a metamorphosis although not to the same extent. In 

 the one the change from the aquatic to the air-breathing animal is 

 never fully accomplished; in the tailed Amphibian the change 

 is accomplished after the embryo has escaped from the ovum." 



Salamanders have had the honour of appearing prominently in 

 fabulous narrative. The Greeks believed that they could live in 

 fire, and this error obtained credence so long, that even now it has 

 not been entirely dissipated. Many people are simple enough to 

 believe from the Greek tradition that these innocent animals are 

 incombustible. The love of the marvellous, fostered and excited 

 by ignorant appeals to superstition, has gone even further than 

 this ; it has been asserted that the most violent fire becomes extin- 

 guished when a Salamander is thrown into it. In the middle ages 

 this notion was held by most people, and it wovdd have been dan- 

 gerous to gainsay it. Salamanders were necessary animals in the 

 conjurations of sorcerers and witches; accordingly painters among 

 their symbolical emblems represented Salamanders as capable of 



* In Dr. Guntlier'a Catalogue of the BatracMa Salientia (as Dr. Gray terms them) 

 in the collection of the British Museum, puhlished in 1858, and which includes all the 

 ascertained species up to the time of publication, as many as 282 are enumerated, 

 ■which are arranged under twenty-five groups holding the rank of famiUes. — En. 



