i*"' 1 Lees, What is Nardoo ? 135 



1915 J 



by Mr. Gillen, and we have partaken of leguminous Nardoo in 

 aboriginal restaurants, where at that time EngUsh was unspoken 

 and the white man httie known. Unquestionably, Nardoo 

 niade from leguminous seeds is, as^ Mr. Bailey points out, a far 

 more likely food than the wretched stuff made from Marsilea 

 spore fruits. But the question is not whether Nardoo is nutritious, 

 butj what is it ? According to Mr. Welch, and, in fact, to every 

 writer upon the subject, it is identified with Marsilea, or with 

 some other specific plant. I maintain that this is not so. 

 Nardoo is not a plant at all. It is a food obtained from several 

 plants. 



NOTES ON ENGLISH AND JAPANESE NEWTS IN 



VICTORIA. 

 By H. W. Davey, F.E.S. 

 {Read before the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, 14th Dec, I9i4-J 

 In March of last year I had the pleasure of reading before 

 this Club some notes on the breeding of English newts in 

 Victoria (yict. Nat., xxix., p. 190J. Since that time I have 

 added some Japanese newts to my collection, and now offer 

 some further notes concerning both species. 



The specimens referred to in my previous paper were 

 hatched from eggs laid in November, 1912, and left the water 

 as lung-breathnig animals during February, 1913. At this 

 stage they were merely miniatures of the adults, excepting 

 that there was nothing by which to distinguish the sexes, but 

 during the following April the sexes could easily be 

 determined, as by this time the males had commenced to 

 develop cutaneous crests, and also the pale blue stripe along 

 the tail, which is characteristic of the males of this species. 

 By the end of June some had developed very fine crests, and 

 the blue stripe on the tail was by this time most pronounced. 

 Some of the young newts of both sexes now take to the 

 water. During July the water was intensely cold, and. 

 probably on account of this, the females left the water, but 

 the males continued to live in it, in spite of its low tempera- 

 ture. During August the females returned to the water, but 

 both sexes were in and out of the water during night-time. 

 The parents of these newts did not take to the water until 

 the middle of September. 



With frogs and toads, with one or two exceptions, impreg- 

 nation of the eggs takes place after they have been 

 extruded by the female, the same as in most of the fishes, 

 but with the tailed Bactrachians as newts (Urodeba) the im- 

 pregnation of the eggs is usually internal. 



During springtime the female newt is usually accompanied 

 by several males, often as many as six attending a single 



