PALMATED SMOOTH-NEWT. bao 
into which error I was led by trusting that the accuracy of 
my lamented friend Bibron, so generally to be depended 
on, was absolutely infallible,—has been subsequently cor- 
rected from various quarters, and as the true L. palmipes 
has been found extensively distributed in this country,— 
I think it right to state the history of this discovery some- 
what in detail. 
It was at the end of April 1843, that I received, through 
the present Dean of Westminster, a communication from 
Mr. Baker of Bridgewater, respecting a new species of 
Newt which he had discovered in that neighbourhood ; 
and on the 6th of May, that gentleman kindly forwarded 
to me several specimens of what has since proved to be the 
true L. palmipes. The prominent characters of the per- 
fectly palmated feet, and the filamentary appendage to 
the tail, as well as the differences in the markings, are 
particularly alluded to in this, the earliest notice of the 
species as a native of Britain. I kept several specimens 
for some time in a glass globe, where they throve well; but 
as, during the autumn, they lost the caudal appendage, 
whether from absorption or from its being nibbled off, I 
waited for further opportunities of describing the species 
from specimens in their full spring-dress. Meanwhile I 
gave it the provisional name of L. appendiculatus. Cireum- 
stances occasioned my intention to be postponed from time 
to time ; until Mr. Wolley discovered the same species in 
the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and communicated the 
discovery to the Zoologist, in a short but satisfactory no- 
tice,—and to myself in a letter accompanied by numerous 
living specimens, It is not necessary for me to quote the 
observations of Mr. Wolley, as they may be referred to in 
the Zoologist ; in which publication there subsequently ap- 
peared further communications from Mr. Baker and Mr. 
