THE GIGANTIC SALAMANDER. 
177 
it by the seller. It lives in the lakes and pools that exist in the basaltic mountain ranges of 
Japan. 
Dr. Yon Siebold brought the first living specimen to Europe, and placed it in a tank 
at Leyden, where it was living when the last accounts were heard, having thus passed a period 
of many years in captivity. Its length is about a yard. Two specimens were brought over at 
the same time, being of different sexes, but on the passage, the male unfortunately killed and 
ate his intended bride, leaving himself to pass the remainder of his life in celibacy. It 
fed chiefly on fish, but would eat other animal substances. 
Another fine specimen attracted much notice in spite of its ugliness and almost total want 
of observable habits. It is very sluggish and retiring, hating the light, and always squeezing 
itself into the darkest corner of its tank, where it so closely resembles in color the rock-work 
near which it shelters itself, that many persons look at the tank without even discovering its 
presence. The length of this specimen is about thirty -three inches, and if it survives, it may 
possibly attain even a larger size. The specimen shown in the engraving on next page is 
reduced to one-fifth of its natural size. 
AXOLOTL .— Axoloteles guttatus. 
The head of this creature is large, flattened, and very toad-like in general aspect, except that 
it is not furnished with the beautiful eyes which redeem the otherwise repulsive expression of 
the toad. The head is about four inches wide at the broadest part, and is covered with innumer- 
able warty excrescences. The eyes are extremely small, placed on the fore part of the head, 
and without the least approach to expression, looking more like small glass beads than eyes. 
The whole upper part of the body is covered thickly with excrescences, and even the 
under part of the rounded toes are studded with little tubercles, which can be plainly seen 
with a magnifying lens as the creature presses its feet against the glass wall of its tank. 
Despite of its sluggish nature, it is quite able to obtain its own subsistence by catching 
the fish on which it feeds, and the keeper told me that even in captivity it easily catches the 
fish that are put into its tank. On the journey, it was mostly fed upon eels, and at the present 
time it eats eels as well as other fish, provided they are rather small. 
It is well to mention casually in this place that the human-looking skeleton, discovered at 
(Eningen in 1726, and long supposed to be the fossil skeleton of a man who had perished in 
the deluge, is nothing more than the bones of a huge Salamander, closely allied to the present 
species. The color of the Gigantic Salamander is a very dark brown, with a tinge of 
chocolate, and taking a lighter and more yellowish hue upon the under surface of the feet. 
Vol. m.-23, 
