GREAT WATER NEWT. 147 



fourth year three-fourths of the prior year's weight 

 becomes superadded. 



At the close of March the perfect triton again 

 resumes its predilection for the water, and returns 

 to an aquatic life. At this period it becomes vora- 

 cious, the male is full crested, with which appendage 

 the female, generally the largest, is not adorned. 

 After a little more than three months of this second 

 life in the water, the crest of the male diminishes to 

 a mere ridge, the female has deposited her ova, and 

 both return again to a terrestrial existence until the 

 following and succeeding years. Thus are the 

 phases of their existence passed, and there is little 

 reason to wonder at the fact that the same species 

 should have been regarded as distinct, in some of 

 these stages when the history of their career was 

 unknown, and their metamorphosis little under- 

 stood. 



Hitherto we have not specially referred to the 

 period of hybernation. Prior to this there is a 

 general meeting of all ages, which occurs at no other 

 period of the year, and takes place about the month 

 of September. 



In the summer the tritons are found in abundance in old brick- 

 yards. The brickmakers, who are constantly disturbing the 

 water and removing the clay, and who occasionally clear the 

 bottoms of the pools, state that they never find any tritons in 

 the water during the winter months ; but they discover great 

 numbers of them in holes in the clay, and sometimes ten or 



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