96 
Batkachians.- 
-REPTILES.- 
-Batkachians. 
of fire, to pass through it unhurt, and even to extinguish 
it in its course ; nay, it was even asserted that when it saw 
the flame, “ this daughter of fire with the body of ice” 
charged it as an enemy which it knew how to conquer. 
This belief of the power possessed by this animal over 
fire is of very ancient date, for Aristotle mentions it as 
an opinion entertained by the common people previous 
to his time. “ The Salamander,” he says, “is an evi- 
dence that the bodies of some creatures are not wasted 
or consumed in the fire, for (as some say) it walketh in 
the fire and extinguisheth the same.” It was also 
asserted by some of the early writers, that a kind of 
fireproof cloth could be fabricated of the skin of the 
Salamander ; that a portion of this salamander-cloth 
was sent by a Tartar king to one of the popes, and 
that the holy napkin of our Saviour is preserved in it. 
Marco Polo, who mentions this cloth, observes shrewdly 
enough that it was no doubt made of some mineral 
substance, most probably asbestos, which the old writers 
actually call Salamander’s wool. Another belief was 
that the Salamander was exceedingly venomous. “ The 
biting of it,” says Topsell, “ is very exitial and deadly, 
and therefore the French men use this speech upon the 
biting of a Salamander : — 
‘ Si mordu t’a line aressade, 
Prens ton linceuil et ta flassade.’ 
That is, if a Salamander bite you, then betake you to 
the coflin and winding-sheet. The Rhcetians do ordi- 
narily affirm, that when a man is bitten by a Sala- 
mander, he hath need of as many physicians as the 
Salamander hath spots. And Arnoldus saith, that it 
hath in it as many venoms and means of hurting as it 
hath colours distinguished one from another.” Such 
are only a few of the many absurd stories which were 
believed in by our forefathers, and which still linger 
among the peasantry of many parts of Europe. No 
wonder that “ the sight of it is abominable and fearful 
to man.” And yet this poor little reptile is in fact 
harmless and inofl'ensive. It is from six to eight inches 
long, is “ thicker and fuller than a lizard, having a 
pale white belly, and one part of their skin exceeding 
black, the other yellow, like verdigris, both of them 
very splendent and glistering, with a black line going 
all along their back, having upon it many little spots 
like eyes.” 
The Salamander inhabits principally Central Eu- 
rope, and it occurs in many parts of France. During 
the day it lives generally under ground, but at night 
it leaves its subterranean retreats and sallies forth to 
seek food. This consists of worms, small molluscs, 
and insects, &c. In winter Salamanders retire to 
some hollow tree, some hole in an old wall or in the 
ground, where they coil themselves up and remain in 
a torpid state till spring revives them. In such places 
numbers of them are sometimes to be met with inter- 
twisted together. The skin of the Salamander is 
largely covered with warty glands. These secrete a 
milky tliiid of a glutinous and acrid nature, like that 
of the common toad. When irritated, it can, it is 
said, shoot out this liquid to the distance of several 
inches; and it was the abundance of this secretion 
that no doubt gave rise to the idea that it could 
quench the heat of fire and flame. As from some 
experiments, made by Laurenti, this milky fluid is 
found to be poisonous to lizards and some other small 
animals, it is to its existence, no doubt also, that we 
owe the accounts of its fearful poisonous powers. Its 
walk is slow and heavy, and though it has been said 
to be very courageous, its want of fear for the presence 
of man, or other larger animals than itself, would 
appear to arise rather from stupidity than from auda- 
city. The Salamander utters no cry, and except at 
the time of producing its young, it is quite terrestrial 
in its habits of life. When thrown into the water, it 
tries immediately to get out again, and comes to the 
surface every moment to respire. Unlike most of the 
other Batrachians, the Salamander is ovoviviparous. 
The young are developed in the oviducts of the mother, 
remaining there till fully formed. When excluded 
from the parent, they only differ from her in appear- 
ance by the possession of branchiae or gills, by the tail 
being compressed, and by their being of a black colour. 
They are deposited in the water by the mother, where 
thej' live a purely aquatic life for some time, till losing 
their gills they become sufficiently matured to live on 
dry land. The young are pretty numerous, amounting 
sometimes to forty and even fifty. M. Joly observed 
a Salamander bring forth twenty-five living young in 
one day. 
The aquatic species of the family are much more 
numerous than the terrestrial. They are generally 
known in this country by the name of Newts or Efts, 
and are distinguished by their tail being always flat 
instead of round, and by the absence of the glands on 
the sides of the head, called the parotids. They are 
entirely aquatic in their habits, passing almost their 
whole life in the water. Several species are natives 
of this country, and some of them are very abundant. 
THE COMMON WARTY NEWT or Great Water 
Newt {^Triton cristatus ) — represented in Plate .3, fig. 
2 — is one of the most common, and the largest of all 
the British species. When adult it is about six inches 
long. It has a flattened head, an obtuse and rounded 
muzzle, and a slightly pendulous upper lip. The body 
is continuous with the head, the neck being only dis- 
tinguished by a small fold of skin beneath. The body 
is thick, round, and corrugated, and the skin is thick 
and covered with small warts or tubercles. The tail is 
about two-fifths of the entire length, considerably com- 
pressed and keeled on both upper and under edges. 
In the breeding season a crest appears on the back of 
the male, running the whole length, and separated from 
the corresponding crest of the tail by a notch at the 
loins. The Great Water Newt is of a blackish colour ; 
the upper parts being of a blackish or yellowish-brown, 
with black round spots, while the under surface is of a 
bright orange, with round black spots. The sides ai-e 
dotted with while, and in the male more especially, 
the sides of the tail are of a beautiful shining pearly 
white. It is a native of ponds and large ditches in 
many parts of England, and is also found in several 
places on the Continent. It lives upon aquatic insects 
and other small animals. In spring a great part of its 
food consists of the tadpoles of the common frog, of 
which it appears to be very fond ; and, according to 
Professor Bell, it devours also the smaller or smooth 
