—last century for an example. Under the head
of Amphibia, in Mr. Charles Knight's English
Cyclopædia, is the following statement: "A
French consul at Rhodes (in seventeen
hundred and eighty-nine) relates that, while
sitting in his chamber there, he heard a loud
cry in his kitchen, whither he ran, and found
his cook in a horrible fright, who informed
him that he had seen the devil in the fire.
M. Ponthonier" (the consul) "then states
that he looked into a bright fire, and there
saw a little animal with open mouth and
palpitating throat. He took the tongs, and
endeavoured to remove it. At his first
attempt, the animal, which he says had been
motionless up to that time (two or three
minutes), ran into a corner of the chimney,
having lost the tip of its tail in escaping, and
buried itself in a heap of hot ashes. In his
second attempt the consul was successful,
drew the animal out, which he describes as a
sort of small lizard, plunged it into spirit,
and gave it to Buffon."

How the salamander is produced seems to
be a puzzle to learned Pliny, for he describes
it as being barren. His proof, however, is
not very conclusive. "There is," he says,
"no more distinction of sex in them than in
yeeles, and in all those that neither lay egs,
ne yet bring forth any living creature.
Oisters, likewise, and all such creatures as
cleave fast either to the rockes or to the
shelves, are neither male nor female." Yet
we have all heard of the oyster crossed in
love.

Pliny's own statement is worth giving:
"Of all venomous beasts, there are not any
so hurtfull and dangerous as are the
salamanders. As for other serpents, they can
hurt but one at once, neither kill they many
together; to say nothing how when they
have stung or bitten a man, they die for verie
griefe and sorrow that they have done such a
mischiefe, as if they had some pricke and
remorse of conscience afterwards, and never
enter they againe into earthe, as unworthy to
be received there." Imagine the conscience
and humility of a viper, an adder, or a cobra
di capella! The salamander, however, has none
of this tenderness of conscience: he is not only
able but willing to destroy whole nations at a
time, and numerous examples, similar to those
cited by Glanvil, are given. But there is
compensation for all things: the poison of
the salamander is dispelled by taking an
infusion of cantharides, and the flesh of lizards
proves an antidote; new wine in the lees is
also recommended, and so is new milk. The
salamandrine poison is not, therefore, so
formidable as at first sight it appears, and one
particular fact is noticeable—swine feed on
salamanders with impunity. Whenever they
meet with these creatures they go, as it were,
the whole hog, and find themselves none the
worse for their banquet.

Would you like to know what the (ancient)
salamander resembles? Take Pliny's description:
"Made in fashion of a lizard, marked
with spots like stars, he never comes abroad
and sheweth himself but in great showres;
for in fair weather he is not seene. He is of
so cold a complexion, that if he do but touch
the fire he will quench it as presently as if ice
were put unto it. The salamander casteth
up at the mouth a certaine venemous matter
like milke; let it but once touch any part of
a man or woman's body, all the haire will
fall off, and the part so touched will change
the colour of the skinne to the white morphew."

As metaphysical agents the salamanders
occupy a remarkable position. In the
cabalistic romance of Le Comte de Gabalis by
the Abbé de Villars, we find them figuring,
in conjunction with the gnomes, nymphs, and
sylphides, amongst the viewless spirits of air
who wait on nature's mischief. It is chiefly
by their alliances with mankind that the
salamanders have rendered themselves
illustrious. All the demi-gods were descended
from them, and many other important
personages, including Zoroaster, who was the
son of the salamander Oromasis, by Vesta,
the wife of Noah, who, having such parents,
deserved the length of life—twelve hundred
years—which was granted him before he was
removed from earth, without dying, to the
region inhabited by the salamanders: a race,
says the Comte de Gabalis, composed of the
most subtle parts of the sphere of fire which
is "conglobed and organised by the action of
universal flame." The union of Oromasis and
Vesta also produced the nymph Egeria—the
same who gave such sage counsels in her
grotto to Numa Pompilius. Another
salamander was the father of Servius Tullius;
and Hercules, Plato, Achilles, Æneas,
Sarpedon, and Melchisedech, were all, according
to the pretended cabalist, the sons of
salamanders. The romance of the Abbé de Villars
was a mystification, written in ridicule of the
doctrines of Descartes.

Turning to science from the reveries of
romance, Cuvier tells us what the salamander
really is. He belongs to the Batrachian or
Frog family, and is about as dangerous an
animal as the dragon. Salamanders are
divided into terrestrial and aquatic. The latter
are chiefly remarkable for their extreme
fecundity, the former for having the faculty of
emitting a milky fluid, which is bitter, and
has a disagreeable odour; being, moreover, a
poison to very weak animals the insects on
which they feed. In shape they bear a general
resemblance to the lizard; aud their offspring,
instead of being demi-gods, are tadpoles.