TWO-LEGGED SALAMANDERS. 
3°9 
with the preceding family in the permanent retention of external gills, they are 
distinguished by the total loss of the hind-limbs, and likewise by the absence of 
teeth in the margins of the jaws. The siren salamander (Siren lacertinci), which 
inhabits the South-Eastern United States, may be compared to a snake furnished 
with a pair of short fore-legs and external gills; and is especially distinguished by 
the presence of three pairs of 
gill-openings on the sides of 
the neck and the four-toed feet. 
The smooth skin is either 
uniformly blackish, or marked 
with small white dots, and the 
total length reaches to as much 
as 28 inches. The Georgian 
two-legged salamander ( Pseu- 
dobranchus striatus), on the 
other hand, has only a single 
pair of gill - openings on the 
neck, and but three toes to 
the feet. These salamanders 
are stated to frequent swampy 
localities, especially pools of 
water beneath the roots of old siren salamander. 
trees, up the stems of which 
they will sometimes climb. A living example was received in England in 1825, 
where it lived till 1831. This specimen was fond of coming out of the water to 
rest on sand or among moss; and in summer ate worms, tadpoles, and various 
other small creatures, but became torpid from the middle of October till the end 
of April. That these salamanders can breathe entirely by means of their lungs, 
is proved by a specimen in an aquarium whose gills had been eaten off by a fish. 
The Ccecilians or Worm-Like Amphibians. 
Order Apoda. 
The remarkable worm-like and blind amphibians forming this group are 
generally regarded as the representatives of a distinct order; although they are 
considered by Professor Cope to be merely a degraded branch of the Tailed 
Amphibians, to which they are allied through the fish-like salamanders. Be this 
as it may, the group is readily distinguished by the total absence of limbs, and the 
general worm-like appearance of the head and body; the tail being either 
rudimental or wanting. In the skull the frontal bones are distinct from the 
parietals, but the palatines are fused with the maxillae. As regards their 
reproduction, these amphibians differ from the newts and salamanders in that the 
two sexes come together in the ordinary manner. Some of them are peculiar in 
having overlapping scales embedded in the skin, like fishes; and in all the eyes 
are either wanting, or are so deeply buried beneath the skin as to be entirely 
