l04 BUBLIN NATT7EAL HISTOKT SOCIETY. 



BATBACHIA. 



FEBRUARY 10, 1854. 



ON THE REPRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE SMOOTH NEWT (LISSOTRITON 

 PUNCTATUS, bell) ; WITH A NOTICE OF THE SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO 

 IT. BY JOHN ROBERT KINAHAN, M.B. 



Some years ago my attention was directed to those interesting animals, 

 chiefly with reference to the number of species found in and about Dublin. I was 

 then so fortunate as to have an opportunity of watching the progress of some of 

 the earlier stages of development of our only Dublin species, the smooth newt 

 (Lissotriton punctatus, Bell). Within the last few months my attention was 

 again called to them, by a very interesting and valuable paper, by J. Higginbot- 

 tom, of Nottingham, in the Annals for December, 1853. In this paper, which is 

 stated to be the result of five years' close study, the author enters very fully 

 into the habits and distinctions of the different species, corroborating for the 

 most part the previous researches ofRusconi in his " Amours des Salaman- 

 dres," and of Professor Bell in his excellent Treatise on British Reptiles, and 

 also adding much to our knowledge by researches into what he calls their "ter- 

 restrial stage." On reading this paper, I was struck with several discrepancies 

 between Mr. Higginbottom's and my own observations. Whether this arose 

 from his observations having been made solely on the warty newt (Triton cris- 

 tatus), (on which point there is some ambiguity in his paper), and mine on the 

 smooth newt, or from some accidental cause, leaving others to decide, I shall 

 content myself with detailing what I saw, and pointing out the discrepancies 

 between the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Higginbottom and the results of my 

 experiments. On the 11th May, 1851, I placed two smooth newts (L. puncta- 

 tus. Bell), one a female, captured in the Bishop's Fields on the preceding day, 

 the other a male, taken some ten days previously, in a glass jar, four inches in 

 diameter, and about eighteen inches high ; this was filled with water within a 

 few inches of its summit, and had floating in it a plant of the Indian pond-weed 

 (Pistia stratiotes). On the 15th, I found that the female had deposited half a 

 dozen eggs ; these were small, and made up of a round white body, about the 

 size of a grain of white mustard seed (which it much resembled), floating inside 

 of a pellucid opal-coloured sac. During the two following days she deposited 

 about a dozen more ; they were arranged in strings of four to six, adhering 

 in rows, and intertwined among the long floating roots, and also through the 

 axils of the leaves ; but in no instance could I find them deposited singly in the 

 folded edges of the leaves, as Bell states, and Mr. Higginbottom asserts, is ne- 

 cessary for their preservation. Bell, indeed, states that they are sometimes 

 placed in the axils of the leaves. The female, when depositing the ovum, wound 

 her tail round the roots of the plant, as if to anchor herself. Of the ova pro- 

 duced I distributed among my friends all but two; these I placed in a small 

 bottle of water in a window facing the S. W., in a room of the temperature of 

 from 60° F. to 70° F. They were soon hatched, the one on the 3rd of June, the 

 other on the 5th. This appears to contradict Mr. Higginbottom's statement, 

 that the ova must be folded up in a leaf, and thus protected from the free access 

 of the water, as these ova were hatched while lying in the bottom of the vessel, 

 and had been knocking about for several hours in a small bottle in my pocket, 

 previous to having been placed in the window. I do not mean to assert that the 

 ova are not deposited also singly in the folded leaves, but merely that they are 

 not necessarily so. The progress of their further metamorphosis has been so 

 well detailed by Bell, that a lengthened description on my part were super- 

 fluous ; suffice it to state, that the newts lived with me for fourteen days from 

 the day they were hatched, and five weeks from their extrusion as ova ; they 



