1896.] Zoology. 829 
the more difficult families. It is so valuable in so many ways that we 
wish it would be made available to a greater number of students. We 
venture to suggest to authors and publishers that they bring out an 
edition without the illustrations, and printed on thin paper, with narrow 
margins. A single volume, portable edition of this admirable book, 
would greatly extend its usefulness.—CHARLEs E. Bessey. 
ZOOLOGY. 
The Heart of Some Lungless Salamanders.'—The recent 
literature of zoology has, perhaps, contained nothing more unexpected 
and startling than that certain adult salamanders are entirely lacking 
in those respiratory organs which, heretofore, have been deemed in- 
dispensable to the existence of animals so high in the zoological scale 
as the Amphibia. This total lack of lungs and branchie appears the 
more marvelous when we remember that they are absent in forms which 
lead a rather active and wholly terrestrial life, as well as in those of 
more or less purely aquatic habits. 
Fwo questions are naturally suggested by this apparently aberrant 
condition of the respiratory organs. First, what structures or organs 
have taken on the functions of the lungs and branchi? and secondly, 
is there any modification in the form or structure of the heart which in 
any way may be correlated with the above mentioned peculiarities of 
* these lungless forms? 
The first of these two questions has been discussed to some extent by 
Prof. Harris H. Wilder, of Smith College, who first published an ac- 
count of this apparently anomalous condition. He concluded that res- 
piration was probably carried on by the skin and, perhaps, to some 
extent, by the mucosa of the intestine. Prof. Camerano has also pub- 
lished the results of some experiments upon two European forms which 
bear upon this same question. He believes that in these lungless forms 
respiration is effected in the bucco-pharyngeal cavity, and that the skin 
affords no efficient aid in the respiratory processes. 
In a still later paper he discusses the subject further, and tries to 
account for the disappearance of the lungs. Of one aquatic species (of 
the genus Molge) he says: `“ The function of the lungs as. hydrostatic 
organs, is very marked.” ‘In the clearly terrestrial forms one would 
say that the diminution in importance of the function of the lungs as 
hydrostatic organs induces a retrogressive development of them while 
1 Read oe the Amer. Assoc. Ady. Science, Aug. 24, 1896. 
