No.4o01.]] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 437 
Lungless Salamanders. — In the Zoologischer Anzeiger, Dr. Einar 
Lönnberg, of Upsala, has an interesting list. of salamanders which 
have the lung rudimentary or wanting. The catalogue includes the 
results of his own work and that of Harris Wilder, Camerano, and 
Moore. 
Salamanders may in this regard be divided into three classes : (1) 
those in which the lungs extend to the groin and are about 60 per 
cent of the length of the body. ‘To this class belong certain Asiatic 
species of Diemictylus (Molge); (2) those in which the lungs 
extend only halfway from the axil to the groin, measuring 38-45 
per cent of the length of the animal. To this class belong other 
species of Diemictylus, species of Salamandrella, Ranideus, and, 
among American species, Ambystoma punctatum and A. microstomum. 
Apparently the American species of Diemictylus (viridescens, toro- 
sus) have not been studied; (3) those without lungs or with merely 
a rudiment. In this class, among American species, belong the fol- 
lowing : Ambystoma opacum (rudiment), Aneideslug ubris, Plethodon 
cinercus, P. glutinosus, Spelerpes porphyriticus, S. ruber, S. longicauda, 
S. guttolineatus, S. bilineatus, Manculus quadridigitatus, Desmognathus 
Juscum, D.brimlcyorum, D.nigrum, and D.achropheum. Other species 
of Spelerpes, with Leurognathus and Batrachoseps, are known to 
belong to this category, which probably includes all Plethodontide 
and Desmognathida. 
* Camerano has rightly pointed out the importance of the lungs as 
a hydrostatic organ, and it seems quite possible that the great length 
of the lungs in many forms is an adaptation to aquaticlife. But the 
lungless salamanders are not necessarily obliged to lead a terrestrial 
life, even if many of them do so; on the contrary, some of them are 
very positively aquatic in their habits." Such do not, however, as is 
the case with Diemictylus, remain suspended in the water, but crawl 
or wriggle at the bottom. "m RT 
The Egg of the Hagfish. — In the Proceedings of the Natural 
History Society of Copenhagen, Adolt Severin Jensen has a valuable 
account of the egg o; the hagfish (Myxine glutinosa), entitled “Om 
Slimaalens Æg.” 
The egg of this singular creature was first described in 1859 by 
Allen Thompson. It has been noticed a few times since then, 
mostly from specimens taken in the stomachs of other fishes, but 
most who have written on the animal and its biology have never 
found a perfect egg. 
