1925] Storer: A Synopsis of the Amphibia of California 133 
out in the middle of a well lighted room will immediately go toward 
the darker side or toward any dark object. Miller (MS) held a dark 
coat near the floor of a room where one of the salamanders was being 
experimented upon. The animal went directly toward the coat and 
when three inches away raised its head and looked at the coat; con- 
tinuing it climbed up into the folds of the garment. Others responded 
in similar manner. As soon as a salamander was placed in contact 
with the side of a small hole, in wood or even in glass, it moved rapidly 
into the cavity, suggesting a strong response to contact regardless of 
other factors (Miller, MS). 
Aneides Ingnbris, like the other members of the Plethodontidae, is 
both lungless and gill-less after leaving the egg. Respiration is 
believed to be carried on through the skin, through the vibratory move- 
ments of the floor of the pharynx, and through enlarged blood sinuses 
in the digits (see Ritter and Miller, 1899, fig. 3). With such depen- 
dence upon cutaneous respiration it is obvious that death would 
quickly follow daytime exposure in the dry climate of the California 
foothill country. Captive individuals which have escaped from the 
moist terarria in which they have been confined in rooms at Berkeley, 
usually perish on the first night of escape ; if they do not, they invari- 
ably show considerable shrinkage in size and bodily configuration, 
indicating that they are ill suited to continuance in even a moderately 
dry atmosphere. 
On rare occasions Aneides has been heard to utter a mouse-like 
squeaking note. Miller (MS) records two instances of this sort, once 
in the wild and once when a captive individual was being stimulated 
with an electric current in the laboratory. I have heard it on at least 
one occasion. How this salamander, without lungs or a vocal pouch, 
produces its note is unknown. 
This salamander breeds during the summer months, egg deposition 
taking place in July and August and possibly in late June. The first 
eggs were discovered about July 24 (1898) on the campus at Berkeley 
when a group of 19 was found in dry soil at the base of a palm 50 
meters from the nearest creek. Development was already advanced 
when the eggs were found (Ritter and Miller, 1899, pp. 697-700). 
In the summer of 1903, 12 egg clusters, of 12 to 18 each, were 
taken from cavities in live oaks on the campus (Ritter, 1903). Five 
eggs, apparently of this species, were found by C. L. Camp beneath 
stones in a rock quarry near Napa, Napa County, on September 1, 
1916. Two lots of eggs numbering 17 and 16, respectively, were dis- 
