YELLOW PHASE OF SPOTTED SALAMANDERS.
The first four or five months of the young salamander's life are passed in the water.
A representative of the tribe now commonly kept in aquaria is the Mexican Axolotl. It has usually a velvety black skin, and grows to a length of 9 or 10 inches. As generally known it presents a very newt-like aspect, or, more correctly, that advanced tadpole state of the newt in which the external gills are most highly developed. The animals breed freely in the water, eggs being laid, which pass through the earlier tadpole to the adult phase. Up to within comparatively recent times the foregoing metamorphoses were supposed to represent the Alpha and Omega of the animal's existence. Some exceptional examples, however, bred in an aquarium in which rocks projected out of the water, surprised their owners by gradually absorbing their supposed persistent gills, also their fin-like tail-membranes, and, crawling out on the rocks, were transformed into ordinary salamanders.
The Olm, or Blind Proteus, of the subterranean caves of Dalmatia and Carniola is a form with persistent external gills. Nearly allied is the North American form known as the Furrowed Salamander. The latter, however, living under more normal conditions, has well-developed eyes. While possessing the customary number of limbs, the number of toes in the American type is four to each foot. In the European Proteus there are but three toes to the front and two toes to the hinder limb. In a yet lower form, the Siren Salamander of the South-eastern United States, a yet more primitive persistently gill-bearing condition is presented.
Photographed & coloured by W. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S. Printed at Lyons, France.
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN SCARLET ROCK-COD.
A member of the Sea-Perch family not infrequently exposed for sale in the Freemantle fish market; having excellent edible qualities.
Photographed & coloured by W. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S. Printed at Lyons, France.