salamanders, of which twenty-nine were obtained from 1865 to 1870, did not
breed, although their branchiate brethren continued to do so very freely.
It was not until 1876 that the axolotl in its _Amblystoma_ state, offspring
of several generations of perennibranchiates, was first observed to spawn,
and this again took place in the reptile house of the Jardin des Plantes,
as reported by Professor E. Blanchard.

The original six specimens received in 1864 at the Jardin des Plantes,
which had been carefully kept apart from their progeny, remained in the
branchiate condition, and bred eleven times from 1865 to 1868, and, after a
period of two years' rest, again in 1870. According to the report of Aug.
Dumeril, they and their offspring gave birth to 9000 or 10,000 larvae
during that period. So numerous were the axolotls that the Paris Museum was
able to distribute to other institutions, as well as to dealers and private
individuals, over a thousand examples, which found their way to all parts
of Europe, and numberless specimens have been kept in England from 1866 to
the present day. The first specimens exhibited in the London Zoological
Gardens, in August 1864, were probably part of the original stock received
from Mexico by the Societe d'Acclimatation but do not appear to have bred.

"White" axolotls, albinos of a pale flesh colour, with beautiful red gills,
have also been kept in great numbers in England and on the continent. They
are said to be all descendants of one albino male specimen received in the
Paris Museum menagerie in 1866, which, paired with normal specimens in 1867
and 1868, produced numerous white offspring, which by selection have been
fixed as a permanent race, without, according to L. Vaillant, showing any
tendency to reversion. We are not aware of any but two of these albinos
having ever turned into the perfect _Amblystoma_ form, as happened in Paris
in 1870, the albinism being retained.

Thus we see that in our aquariums most of the axolotls remain in the
branchiate condition, transformed individuals being on the whole very
exceptional. Now it has been stated that in the lakes near Mexico City,
where it was first discovered, the axolotl _never_ transforms into an
_Amblystoma_. This the present writer is inclined to doubt, considering
that he has received examples of the normal _Amblystoma tigrinum_ from
various parts of Mexico, and that Alfred Duges has described an
_Amblystoma_ from mountains near Mexi