Salamander

“ My dear little boy, I am not striking you for any wrong that you have done, but only to make you remember that that lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen before by any one of whom we have credible information. ”

“ Sassoon did not impress her with any sense of danger. She rather scoffed at him, remembering his silken voice, the slight feminine touch of his hand, the haunted dreamy discontent in his heavy eyes.
Harrigan Blood was different. In her profound education of a Salamander, she knew his type, too: the man without preliminaries, who put abrupt questions, brushing aside the artifices and subtleties that arrest others. ”

“ Salamander, sal′a-man-dėr, n. a genus of tailed Amphibians, nearly related to the newts, harmless, but long dreaded as poisonous, once supposed able to live in fire: (her.) a four-legged creature with a long tail surrounded by flames: a poker used red-hot for kindling fires: a hot metal plate for browning meat, &c.—adjs. Salaman′driform; Salaman′drine, like a salamander: enduring fire; Salaman′droid—also n. [Fr. salamandre—L.,—Gr. salamandra; of Eastern origin.]
Salamba, sa-lam′ba, n. a contrivance for fishing used at Manila and elsewhere in the East. ”

“ The story of the extreme frigidity of the salamander’s body at once putting out the fiercest fire was a matter that he thus brought to the testing-point, the result being that the unfortunate victim of science was quickly shrivelled up and consumed. Another old statement, equally capable of being brought to the trial, was that if even the foot of a man came in contact with the liquid exuded from the skin of the salamander all his hair would fall off. ”

“ At a later date a metamorphosis takes place in tritons, as in frogs. They leave the water, lose their gills, and accustom themselves to breathe with their lungs. But if they are prevented from doing this by being kept shut up in a tank, they do not lose their gills. The gills remain, and the water salamander continues through life in that low stage of development, beyond which its lower relations, the gilled salamanders, or Sozobranchiata, never pass. The gilled salamander attains its full size, its sexual development, and reproduces itself without losing its gills. ”

“ It was in the Middle Ages an article of belief that the salamander was bred and nourished in fire, and we have ourselves been gravely told that if the fires at the ironworks in the Midland Counties were not occasionally extinguished, an uncertain but fearful something would be created in them. When the salamander is represented it is always placed in the midst of flames. ”

“ This myth of the superiority of the salamander to fire is wide-spread and ancient. It is a common saying that a person who is not easily affected by heat is “a perfect salamander.” The stories of some old-time naturalists about the salamanders are amusing. We are told that the creature can not only live in fire, but is born in it; that passing through a fire it extinguishes it; that smiths finding the forge fires going out, always knew that a salamander was playing therein, and mended the fire by killing the animal. Another myth was that the salamander was the most poisonous of all creatures ”

“ A very small neighbor to be found on the borders of the woods or a shady road is the pretty, harmless
Salamander Seldom more than two and one-half inches long, this little creature is slender and daintily made, with a tail quite the length of its head and body. Its skin is smooth, not scaled like the lizard’s, and is generally brilliant in color. One variety is bright red, darker on the back, where it has spots of a brighter red encircled with dark rings. I have found many of them in Pike County, Pa., and always in damp places, though never in the water. ”

“ The real truth is that the Salamander is no beast as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance found in the earth. Everybody can be aware that it can be no animal's nature to live in fire seeing that every animal is composed of all the four elements. Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish acquaintance who related that he had lived three years in that region on behalf of the Great Khan, in order to procure these salamanders for him. ”

“ But the Lizard is clothed with scales, while the body of the Salamander is naked, and the young of the former is complete when hatched, while the Tadpole born from the Salamander has a life of its own to live, with certain changes to pass through before it assumes its mature condition; during the early part of its life it is even destitute of legs, and has gills like the Fishes. Above the Lizards and Salamanders, highest in the class of Reptiles, stand two other collateral types,—the Turtles at the head of the Scaly Reptiles, the Toads and Frogs at the Lead of the Naked Reptiles. ”

“ The most striking case in favour of this view, is that the terrestrial salamander, according to Lessona, cannot reproduce lost parts, whilst another species of the same genus, the aquatic salamander, has extraordinary powers of regrowth, as we have just seen; and this animal is eminently liable to have its limbs, tail, eyes and jaws bitten off by other tritons. ”

“ In the Land Salamander the body is black and warty with large irregular yellow spots distributed over the head, back, sides, feet, and tail. They affect obscure and moist places, and only issue from their retreat in the night or morning, walking slowly, and dragging themselves with difficulty along the surface of the ground. ”

“ He severely jeers at women who expose themselves to temptations, and whom he calls "salamanders": "A salamander is a kind of heroine in chastity, that treads upon fire, and lives in the midst of flames without being hurt. A salamander knows no distinction of sex in those she converses with, grows familiar with a stranger at first sight, and is not so narrow-spirited as to observe whether the person she talks to be in breeches or petticoats. ”

“ The salamander larvæ grow to considerable size before they make their final change of form. Their gills are very large, and as they swim about they look as if they had trimmed their necks with foliage. In the water they find themselves very comfortable until they approach the adult period. Then they become restless and dig holes for themselves in the mud or sand of the streams or ponds where they live. ”

“ Others assert [Pg 348] that they have seen salamanders extinguish burning embers by emitting a viscous humour, and Benvenuto Cellini, in his Memoirs, gives an account of having seen a salamander in the midst of his fire. The salamander, or rather the newt that bears that name, partakes of the lizard and frog, being generally from five to six inches in length. Naturalists admit two kinds, the land and the water salamander. Maupertius, among many others, submitted both species to the test of fire, and the result was the same as with any other animal. ”

“ This coat in many species of salamander—using this name in the wide sense—is produced into threads which serve either to anchor the eggs singly or to bind them together in bunches.
Viviparity occurs both among the limbless and the tailed Amphibia, the eggs hatching before they leave the oviduct or immediately after extrusion. The number of young so produced is generally not large, but the common salamander (Salamandra maculosa) may produce as many as fifty at a birth, though fifteen is the more normal figure. When the higher number is reached the young are relatively small and weak. ”

“ The Sun, which is the Centre of our planetary System, for aught we know, may be the Seat of glorious Inhabitants; or, as others conjecture, the Place of future Misery.
Upon the whole, the Salamander being of a mucous, slimy, and cold Body, will, like Ice, soon extinguish a little Fire, but will be as soon consum’d by a great Fire; therefore it was no Absurdity in Galen, when, as a sceptical Medicine, he recommended the Ashes of a Salamander.
The like Humidity is observable in Water-Lizards, especially if their Skins be prick’d: Yea, Frogs, Snails, White of Eggs, will soon quench a lesser Coal. ”

“ Drahomir.—They told me that there was a woman in a house of which the roof had begun to burn. Thinking that this salamander who was not afraid of fire was some enchanted beauty, I entered the house out of pure curiosity. It was quite dark owing to the smoke. I looked and saw that I had no luck, because the salamander was only an old Jewish woman packing some feathers in a bag. ”

“ But the glands on its skin, like those on the toad's head and back, contain a rather poisonous fluid, which is squirted out if they are squeezed. So that if a dog were to pick up a salamander he would be quite sure to drop it again very quickly, and would most likely foam at the mouth for some little time.
Salamanders are very slow and timid creatures, and generally spend the whole of the day concealed in some crevice, or in the hollow trunk of a tree, or perhaps under a large stone. They feed upon slugs and small insects. ”

“ Jonstonus de Quadrupedibus, p. 137.
The Aquatic Salamander is not very unlike the former, unless it be in Colour and Figure; some with a Tail turn’d up, others with a flat Tail, prominent in the middle: There are various sorts of them; one of which appears in the form of a Turbot, whose Eggs are as large as Garden-pears.
When upon Land their Mouth will not open, unless it be by Force, or they be cast into a Vessel of Water: When put upon Salt, they move the Tail and die; their Skin is close compacted, and not penetrable by a Sword; and ’tis said that Swine’s Flesh is Poison to them [198] . ”

“ Add to which the authority of numerous sage philosophers, at the head of whom are Aristotle and Pliny, affirms this power of the salamander. According to them, the animal not only resists fire, but extinguishes it, and when he sees the flame charges it as an enemy which he well knows how to vanquish. ”

“ Inheritance was imperfect in each case. The new type of spotted salamander, under the usual normal conditions, deposited in the water a brood of five fairly well developed young. The new type of black salamander, under normal conditions, deposited in the water a brood of three young in a stage of development more advanced than that of the spotted salamander. When the artificial conditions of the experiments were continued through two generations the effect was greater. The author claims that his experiments show the inheritance of acquired characters influencing structure and instinct. ”

“ In these four years, so full of pain and toil, I seem to have lived four decades. By degrees, the creature gets accustomed to its element; the salamander learns to live in fire, and be of the same temperature with it. ”

“ Among reptiles the salamander and the shamir are the most marvellous. The salamander originates from a fire of myrtle wood [156] which has been kept burning for seven years steadily by means of magic arts. Not bigger than a mouse, it yet is invested with peculiar properties. One who smears himself with its blood is invulnerable, [157] and the web woven by it is a talisman against fire. [158] The people who lived at the deluge boasted that, were a fire flood to come, they would protect themselves with the blood of the salamander. [159]
King Hezekiah owes his life to the salamander. ”

“ The wild boar of Pamphylia, and the mountainous parts of Cilicia, after having devoured a Salamander, will become poisonous to those who eat its flesh; and yet the danger is quite imperceptible by reason of any peculiarity in the smell and taste. The Salamander, too, will poison either water or wine in which it happens to be drowned; and, what is more, if it has only drunk thereof, the liquid becomes poisonous.”
This idea of an animal supporting life in the fire is not confined to the Salamander alone, for both Aristotle and Pliny aver that there is a fly which possesses this accomplishment. ”

“ I know whereof I speak, for a friend who was with me in the mountains, wishing to carry two of the salamanders home with her, placed them in a box without moisture of any kind and when we lifted the lid the 371next morning the poor little creatures were dead and as dry as two sticks.
The salamander feeds on small insects, but I have never seen them eat in captivity. ”

“ So the little salamander, that is going to spend his life on dry land, still has gills while he is in the egg and has no use for them, all just because other salamanders that live some of the time in the water need gills to breathe with.
Then there are the snakes, which have lungs and breathe air like any land animal. Only a snake is so very slender that there isn’t room in him for two lungs side by side. So he has only one proper lung, very long and thin, that runs from his neck pretty well down to his tail. ”

“ The real creature is very similar in form to the newts that are so commonly to be found in ponds, but the salamander of Francis I. is more like a wingless dragon, while some of the mediæval heralds made it a quadruped something [Pg 64] like a dog. Such a creature, breathing forth flames, may be seen in the crest of Earl Douglas A.D. 1483. ”

“ This curious salamander is seldom encountered and is barely mentioned in standard textbooks of natural history. Confined to the southeastern United States, it often is considered a highly poisonous animal. Actually it is harmless. Very rarely one is caught on a fishhook. ”

“ None have the remarkably long middle toes on the hind-foot, so characteristic of living frogs.
A small, living salamander has the posterior feet pointing back-ward; and, as he walks, the toes point away from the head. The track-way, therefore, consists of two parallel rows of footprints, half of each pointing forward and half directed backward. This salamander has its representative ichnozoan in the Stetiodactylus, not varying essentially in size from it.
One of the most interesting classes of batrachian impressions is called Batrachoides. ”