TAILED BATRACHIANS 253 



the belly, which is yellow or orange, is uncoloured ; a few 

 spots are sometimes scattered over the belly, but are never 

 present on the throat, which is pigmentless, an important 

 character to distinguish this species, in both sexes, from 

 the Common Newt. The lower edge of the tail is 

 yellow or orange in the female, bluish-grey in the male. 



On the Continent the Palmated Newt is abundant over 

 the greater part of France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, 

 Western Germany, and Northern Spain. 



As in the Common Newt, the breeding season of this 

 species extends from the end of February to the end of 

 May, after which it retires into some hole on the banks of 

 the water. 



The Alpine Newt, M. alpestris, a rather small species, 

 measuring barely four inches in length, although ascending 

 to a considerable altitude, is by no means restricted to the 

 mountains, as its name would imply, but is found over the 

 greater part of Central Europe, including the lowlands of 

 Holland. The breeding male is ornamented with a low, 

 straight-edged crest, which extends without interruption 

 along the very strongly compressed tail. The skin is more 

 or less distinctly tuberculate on the upper surfaces, which 

 are bluish, dark green, brown, or blackish, usually uniform, 

 but sometimes marbled with darker ; a lateral series of small 

 black spots on whitish ground is constant in both sexes, 

 and is, in the breeding male, bordered inferiorly with a 

 sky-blue band ; the crest of the back is white, with round 

 black spots ; the under-surfaces are uniform yellow, 

 orange, or red. Like the majority of European newts, this 

 species does not flourish in confinement. 



The Marbled Newt, M. marmorata, which attains a 

 larger size than the Crested Newt or the Alpine Newt, in- 



