THE SALAMANDER. 
753 
fire, M. de Maupertuis, in the course of his experiments, in vain irri- 
tated several of these salamanders : none of them even opened their 
mouths ; he was obliged to open them by force. As the teeth of 
this lizard are very small, it was very difficult to find an animal with 
a skin sufficiently fine to be penetrated by them : he tried without 
success to force them into the flesh of a chicken striptof its feathers ; 
he in vain pressed them against the skin ; they were displaced, but 
could notenter. He, however, made a salamander bite the thigh of a 
chicken, after he had taken off a small part of the skin. He made 
also salamanders, newly caught, bite the tongue and lips of a dog, 
as well as the tongue of a turkey ; but none of these animals received 
the smallest injury. 
M. de Maupertuis made a dog and a turkey swallow salamanders 
whole, or cut in pieces, and yet neither of them appeared sensible of 
the least uneasiness. M. Laurenti since made experiments with the 
same view ; he forced gray lizards to swallow the milk proceeding 
from the salamander, and they died very suddenly. The milk there- 
fore of the salamander, taken internally, may hurt, and even be fatal 
to certain animals, especially those that are small, but it does not ap- 
pear to be hurtful to large animals. 
It was long believed that the salamander was of one sex, and that 
each individual had the power of engendering its like, as several 
species of worms. This is not the most absurd fable which has been 
imagined with respect to the salamander ; but if the manner in which 
they come into the world is not so marvellous as has been reported, it is 
remarkable in this, that it differs from that in which most other lizards 
are brought forth, as it is analogous to that in which the chaleide 
and the seps, as well as vipers and several kinds of serpents, are pro- 
duced. On this account the salamander merits the attention of natu- 
ralists much more than on that of the false and brilliant reputation it 
has so long enjoyed. 
M. de Maupertuis having opened some salamanders, found eggs in 
them, and some young perfectly formed ; the eggs were divided into 
tvvo long bunches like grapes, and the young were enclosed in two 
transparent bags ; they were equally well formed as the old ones, and 
much more active. The salamander therefore brings forth young from 
an egg hatched within its belly, as the viper ; and her fecundity is 
very great : naturalists have long said that she has forty or fifty at 
once ; and M. de Maupertuis found forty-two eggs in the body of one 
female salamander, and fifty-four in another. The young salaman- 
ders are generally black, almost without spots ; and this colour they 
preserve sometimes during their whole lives, in certain countries, where 
they have been taken for a distinct species. 
Mr. Thunberg has given, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Swe- 
den, the description of a lizard, which he calls the Japanese lizard, 
and which appears not to differ from our salamander, but in the 
arrangement of its colours. This animal is almost back, with severa.1 
whitish and irregular spots, both on the upper part of the body and 
below the paws ; on the back there is a stripe of dirty white, which 
becomes narrow^ to the point of the tail. This whitish stripe is inter- 
spersed with very small specks, which form the distinguishing charac- 
5 c 
