NEWTS AND SALAMANDERS. 
3°6 
skin is of a uniform blackish brown colour, although rather lighter below than 
above. In total length, full-grown examples measure about 31 inches. From the 
difference in the number of the toes it has been thought that there are two species; 
but since the two-toed and three-toed forms are in other respects similar, it seems 
preferable to regard them as varieties or local races of a single species. These 
salamanders are inhabitants of muddy waters, frequently burying themselves in 
the mud at the bottom, in one instance to the depth of a yard or more, in thick 
clayey mud of the consistence of putty, in which they burrowed like worms. They 
also frequent the irrigation channels in rice-fields, while they occasionally venture 
THREE-TOED OR EEL-LIKE SALAMANDER liat. size). 
on land. Their food comprises fresh-water mussels, fish, beetles, other insects, and 
crustaceans. Beyond the fact that the female lays eggs, in which the tadpole lies 
coiled up until it attains several times the length of its chamber, little is known as 
to the breeding-habits of this species. 
The Gilled Salamanders. 
Family Proteidje. 
Represented only by the curious olm of the subterranean waters of Carniola 
and other parts of Europe, and by an allied genus in North America, the gilled 
salamanders take their title from the permanent retention of external gills, on 
Avliich account they may be regarded as some of the lowest representatives of the 
