_Salamandra punctata_, Gmel. This appellation was originally given and restricted to the _stelio_ of Catesby. tab. 10. (represented in the bill of Ardea Herodias) and was adopted by many subsequent authors, but was finally rejected by Daudin, who considered the species the same as Barton's _subviolacea_. He concurred with Mr. Latreille in appropriating the name thus rejected to _var. β_ of _Lacerta_, _aquatica_ of Gmel. Notwithstanding this high authority I cannot but coincide with Professor Barton in this instance, in believing it altogether distinct. The single character of the subocellate spots, though not remarked by this author, is a sufficiently discriminative one; these ocellæ are always present, and in no one of the varieties I have seen has the approximation to the _subviolacea_ been so considerable as to render a specific discrepance equivocal. Catesby's variety with the ocellæ on the tail seems to be the least common; in general these spots, or epupillate ocellæ, are exclusively confined to a line on each side of the back, about six in each, extending from the base of the head to the origin of the tail, though there are sometimes scattered smaller ones on each side of the body, and upon the vertex of the head, they are of a beautiful reddish colour, enclosed by a definite black areola; the upper part of the body is brownish, with numerous, distant black points, and a slight vertebral, obtuse carina, the inferior surface of the body of a fine yellow or orange, with distant black points, the tail[37] is compressed, ancipital, attenuated to an obtuse tip, longer than the body, and punctured with black in like manner. The younger specimens vary considerably, in being, on many parts of the body, destitute of black punctures, and in having the dorsal and ventral colour, of the same pale orange. It is decidedly aquatic. Several specimens are preserved in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and from these it is evident that the reddish colour of the subocellate spots is destroyed by the action of the antiseptic liquid; to this circumstance it is probably owing that these spots have been hitherto described as white. After stating these differential traits, it may be proper to observe, that the _S. maculata_ of Shaw is synonymous with the above. But I think it most proper to restore Gmelin's name _punctata_, which will afford an opportunity to do justice to the memory of Laurenti, by reviving the original name by which he distinguished the _Var. β. of Lacerta_, _aquatica_, Gmel., that of _parisinus_.