72 REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS. 



blance to the Salamander is evident, explaining their family name. 

 Like the frogs, they breathe through their skin as well as by lungs ; 

 and the same action of the throat in breathing or swallowing air 

 is observable. Giving out carbonic acid through the skin, they 

 require constant attention when in captivity, and a frequent change 

 of water, which otherwise becomes vitiated, in the same way that 

 the air of a close room full of people becomes vitiated. 



Their period of greatest activity is in April, May, and a part of 

 June, when they are in the water. They are provided with a 

 long, laterally compressed tail, which is their swimming organ, 

 their short legs being used only to guide their movements in the 

 water, and not as agents in swimming. And though more of an 

 aquatic habit than the frogs, their feet are not so permanently 

 webbed. The action of the legs is so easy and rapid that they 

 appear to hang loose, so to speak, as if unhinged, though every 

 slightest change in their position guides the animal in swimming, 

 as a rudder guides a boat. Sometimes they are folded back close 

 to the body so as to present no resistance in the water, then, in 

 an instant, they are at one angle or another, or prone again, more 

 as if swayed by the water than their owner. Then, when the newt 

 is floating or quiescent, either in the water or upon the surface, 

 the legs are extended at right angles to the body, so as the better 

 to help sustain its weight. The illustration (fig. 26), though repre- 

 senting the skeleton of a larger Salamander, affords a correct idea 

 of the form, with its elongated, flexible vertebral column, its short 

 ribs and legs, the latter extended in the position natural to them 

 when stationary. 



The three British species of Molge are alike in having a soft, 

 sensitive skin, a compressed tail, four fingers and five toes, 

 toothed jaws and palate, developed eyelids, and the third nictitat- 

 ing membranous lid. They all have very small nostrils at the 

 end of the snout, and communicating with the mouth, close to 

 the front. The males, during the spring, which is the breeding 

 season, have a fine dorsal crest, which afterwards disappears as 

 described (p. 76). 



Newts lay their eggs singly among the pond weeds, and are said to 

 secure each egg by pressing together with their legs the parts of 

 the plant to hide it, as if prompted by an intelligent sense of pro- 

 tecting their eggs from the swarms of little frog and toad tad- 

 poles, and even their own near relatives, small fish, and other 

 hungry hunters, who would speedily devour them. The egg goes 

 through the unequal segmentation, and when hatched the little 

 tadpoles are at first furnished with suckers, somewhat more stalked 

 than those of the fros, and with which to attach themselves to a 



