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THE AMERICAN NA TURALIST. [Vol. XXXV 1 1 . 



of San Francisco Bay. The tree is short trunked, and diffusely- 

 branched, the contorted branches being wide spreading rather 

 than high reaching, so that a height of fifty feet is exceptional. 

 The salamanders are found as high in the trees as there^are 

 holes suitable for their dwelling places. Some have been taken 

 from holes at the height of thirty feet at least. In some of the 

 largest cavities as many as twelve individuals were found ; more 

 commonly, however, a hole contained two, or occasionally but a 

 single one. 



Several facts indicate pretty clearly that in some cases all the 

 inhabitants of a single chamber were close of kin, constituted in 

 fact, a family. Where a considerable number of individuals were 

 together it invariably happened that the majority were small, and 

 the particularly significant thing is that the small ones were all of 

 about the same size, their length being about 50 mm. Besides 

 these individuals of minimum size there occurred in nearly all 

 the inhabited holes whether containing the small ones or not, a 

 few, usually two, individuals of maximum size. Then in addition 

 to those of maximum and minimum size, there were frequently 

 found, in the same hole, several others of intermediate size. 

 Those of minimum size constituted in all probability a single 

 litter, and were at this season of the year, viz., early autumn, 

 yearlings. Furthermore, I strongly suspect they were fre- 

 quently, if not always, the young of the individuals of maximum 

 size occurring in the holes with them. If this interpretation of 

 the meaning of the presence of the small individuals together is 

 correct, it would follow that they had probably never yet in the 

 year of their existence left the tree in which they were hatched - 

 It is hardly to be supposed that they could make nightly excur- 

 sions to the ground and return to the same hole to spend the 



