PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 77 



considered generally as the true mode of seeking and using food, as their wild state 

 influenced them. They more commonly adapted their habits to the use of the ar- 

 tificial food supplied to them. 



Mr. Andrews said that, in the instance of a merganser, whose strong serration of 

 the mandibles in the wild state enabled it to retain the fish it captured, the serrated 

 character of the bill became blunt, and, to some degree, obliterated, by its change 

 of food in confinement. 



Mr. Kinahan observed, that the paper possessed particular interest in the remarks 

 concerning the breeding of the Manx shearwater and Bulwer's petrel in this country. 

 Mere stragglers have no right to be regarded as natives, though their oc- 

 currence should always be noted. He had no doubt that observation would add 

 some birds to the list of those which breed in this country, at least occasionally. 

 He might remark, that he believed the siskin was amongst the number, having met 

 them in various years, in the summer, in Rathgar and Donnybrook, in the County 

 Dublin, and in Tipperary, and in Powerscourt woods as late as the 22nd of July. 

 He had also little doubt that the redwing sometimes bred here, and it was also 

 believed that the black-cap warbler did so too. 



Mr. Kinahan then read his paper 



ON THE REPRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE SMOOTH NEWT, AND A NOTICE 

 OF THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO IT. 



■Some years ago my attention was directed to these 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, (L. punctatus — 

 Bell. Within the last few months my attention was again called to them, by a very 

 interesting and valuable paper, by J. Higginbottom, 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 of Rus- 

 coni, in his u Amours des Salamandres," 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 terrestrial 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 (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 Uth May, 1851, I placed two smooth newts (L. punctatus — Bell), one a 

 female, captured in the Bishop's Fields, on the preceding day, the other a male, 

 taken some ten days previous, 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 de- 

 posited singly in the folded edges of the leaves as Bell states, and Mr. Higginbottom 

 asserts, is necessary for their preservation. Bell, indeed, states that they are some- 

 times 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 produced 

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

 water, in a window facing the south-west, in a room of the temperature of from 

 60 to 70 degs. Fahrenheit. 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 



