150 SALAMANDRADA. 
dorsal crest, as I have just described it, be the normal 
manner in which the animal makes its seasonal change of 
dress ?” 
It was on this species principally that Spallanzani tried his 
well known experiments on the reproduction of portions of 
the extremities and of the tail; and he found that the same 
member will be reproduced several times in succession of 
being cut off, and this with the bones, muscles, vessels, and 
nerves belonging to its original state. Its tenacity of life, 
like that of most other cold-blooded vertebrate animals, is 
a remarkable feature in its functional character. It has 
been frozen in a solid block of ice, and when slowly thawed, 
it has appeared scarcely injured. 
The food of this species is similar to that of the larger 
species. Like them, it not only eats aquatic insects and 
small Mollusca and worms, but swallows the tadpoles of the 
Frog and Toad with great avidity. 
It is almost unnecessary to say that the accusation of 
being poisonous, so generally believed by the lower classes 
in most parts of the country, is wholly unfounded. 
The word Eft, or Evet, by which the whole of these 
animals are designated in many parts of the country, is 
Anglo-Saxon; ‘“‘ Efete,—an Eft, a Newt, a Lizard,” says 
Somner. “J know not,” says Skinner, ‘ whether from 
Ef-an, equalis, from the smoothness and evenness of the 
skin.” Junius suggests that Newt is corrupted from an 
evet, a nevet, a newt. 
The whole of the skin in this species is quite smooth ; 
there are no tubercles, but on the head are two rows of 
pores. ‘Tail terminating in a sharp point. The lip of the 
male is slightly lobed in the spring, but becomes straighter 
when it loses its crest towards winter. The crest of the 
back and tail in the male are, during the season of repro- 
