This is the Abranchus " and Menopoma of Harlan ; Protonopais of Barton ; Cryptobrunchea of Lcukardt and Fitzinger ; Salamandrops of WitFler.
There are two species known, the Protonopsis horrida and I'. fuaca. The first species is well known. Its length is about two feet ; laud broad and flattened ; mouth wide ; nostrils projecting ; body thick and stout ; tail compressed vertically, and nearly as long as the body ; legs stout and short; colour slaty with dark spots on the body ; a dark line runs through the eyes.
This is the Ilellbendtr, Mud Devil, Ground Peppy, mid Young A lligator of the Anglo-Americans ; and Fisch-Salamander of the Germans.
It inhabits the Ohio and Alleglutny rivers.
This Batrachian is carnivorous and very voracious ; nothing that it can devour is spared by it. The fishermen dread it very much, end believe it to be poisonous. Indeed the appearance of the is altogether uncouth and forbidding.
Miehaux appears to have been the first traveller who discovered and noticed the Protonopsia. He states that in the torrents of the Alleghanies is found a species of Salamander, called by the inhabitants ' Alligator of the Mountains,' and that there are some which are two feet in length.
There is a well-preserved skeleton of Protonopaia horrida in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
Sieboldia, Head large, trigono-ovate ; rostrum produced, vertex convex ; forehead concave ; nostrils, in the anterior margin of the maxilla, approximate ; eyes very small, hardly distinguishable; no parotids ; tongue not distinct; palatine teeth numerous ; a crest on the anterior margin of the Yemen; posterior feet with cutaneous appendages; toes small, free, with depressed cutaneous lateral lobes; tail rather round at the base, very much depressed in the middle and behind, head thickly covered with glands ; body depressed, with transverse folds and a long thick cutaneous appendage on each side.
Figures of the skull, showing the teeth, of the skeleton of the fore hand, and of some of the vertebrae, arc given on the preceding page.
This is the genus Megalobatraehua of Tschiali; but the Prince of Canine's name, Sicboldia, has the right of priority. The genus belongs to the A ndriadina of the Prince's & damandrid(c.
Sicboldia maxima is the Salam and ria maxima of Schlegel ("Fauna Japon.,' vii, tab. vi., vii., viii.), and was found by Dr. Von Siebold in a lake on a basaltic mountain in Japan. Ile brought away a male and a female ; but the former devoured the latter during the passage. The gill-aperture slit always remains open in Protonopsia, but in this great newt the slits are closed. This animal is the nearest living analogue of A ndrias Schruchzeri, the celebrated Homo Dilurii Testis of Scheuchzer.
Triton.
Head rounded, convex; vertex somewhat flattened ; tongue small, semi-globular, slightly free at each side, free and pointed behind ; palatine teeth numerous, disposed in two rows ; body granuloma; no parotids ; tail compressed, as long as the body ; glandular pores behind and over the eyes, and a longitudinal row of distant and similar pores along each side. Toes four on the anterior and five on the posterior feet. Crests of the back and tail (in the male) separate.
Example, Triton cristatua.
The colour is blackish, orange-coloured beneath, sprinkled with round black spots ; sides dotted with white ; upper lip overhanging the lower, but not having a distinct lobe ; body warty or tubercu lated ; tail rather smooth, compressed, sharp, trenchant above and below. Length six inches.
Male (in the spring) with an acute toothed dorsal crest; tail with " Afterwards changed to Mena/vela by Dr. Harlan, Abranchua haying been pre-occupied by Van Remelt to designate a genus of mollusks.
a longitudinal white stripe. In winter without a crest, and much resembling the female.
Female.—No crest ; lower edge of the tail orange.
Young.—Olive-brown with a sulphureous dorsal line ; abdomen orange, spotted with black ; lower edge of' the tail orange-red.
This is the Lacerta palustris of Linnteus ; Salamandra aquatica of Ray ; Salamandra cristata of Schneider, Dandin, &c.; Triton palustris' of Fleming ; Salamandra platycauda of Rusconi ; Molge of 31errett ; Molge palustris of 3Ierrem ; Grosse IVasser-Salamandcr and Sumpf-Salamander of Bechstein ; if Lizard of Pennant ; Common Warty Newt and Great Water-Newt of the British.