188 



VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY 



about three feet, live in swamps and muddy water, often invading 

 the rice fields of the Mississippi lowlands. The rather hard-shelled 

 eggs are laid in festoons and are protected by the female, which lies 

 about them in a coil. The larvae have well-developed external gills 

 and legs relatively larger than those of the adult. 



Family 2. Salamandridce. (Salamanders and Newts.) These 

 urodeles are without gills in the adult stage; maxillaries are pre.sent; 



. ^ _^ .,,^ teeth occur in both jaws; 



eyes have movable eyelids; 

 fore and hind limbs present, 

 but sometimes much reduced. 

 Nearly three-fourths of the 

 tailed Amphibia belong to 

 this family. Only a few typi- 

 cal species can be mentioned 

 here. 



Desmognothus fuscus (Fig. 

 110) is one of our commonest 

 American newts. It is a small 

 type, aljout four inches in 



Fig. 110. — Denmognaihuti fuscus; female 

 with eggs in hole underground. (From Ga- 

 dow, after Wilder.) 



length, living a noctur- 

 nal life, hiding in the 

 daytime under stones or 

 concealed aloirg the edges 

 of mountain streams. 

 The color is brown saf- 

 fu.sed with pink and gray. 

 They are, strange to say, 

 lungless, the process of 

 respiration being carried 

 on in the skin and pos- 

 sibly also by the mucous 

 lining of the intestine. 

 The eggs are laid in a 

 bunch, each egg attached 

 by a string, the whole 



Fig. 111. — Spelerpes fuscus, showing the posi- 

 tion and shape of the partly protruded tongue 

 and the tongue skeleton on the right. T, tongue; 

 B, branchial arch; H, hyoid. (From Gadow, after 

 Berg and Wiedersheim.) 



group looking like a Ijundi of toy balloons. The female lays the 

 eggs in a hole in tlie mud and coils her body partly about them. 

 After a period of incubation the eggs hatch and give forth larvce 



