COMMON ^yARTY-NE^VT. 121 



former group. The whole of them are characterised also by 

 an elongated body, by the existence of four legs, and by an 

 aquatic life. 



This species, which grows to the length of six inches, is 

 the largest found in this country. It is not at all uncommon 

 in ponds and large ditches, where it lives upon aquatic in- 

 sects, and upon any other small living animals. It feeds 

 during the spring upon the Tadpole of the Common Frog, 

 which it devours with great voracity, and thus doubtless co- 

 operates with the smaller fishes to keep under the immense 

 increase of Frogs, which, but for this, and similar means of 

 destruction, would necessarily take place, and almost realize 

 amongst us a repetition of the Egyptian plague. They will 

 also devour the smaller species of Newt, Tr. punctatus, which 

 they seize with great apparent ferocity, and hold fast in spite 

 of all the efforts made by the victim to escape. I have taken 

 them more than once in the act of swallowing an individual 

 of the smaller species, which was so large as to occasion great 

 difficulty and delay in the act of deglutition. The following 

 fact in their habits is also worthy of remark : — " It is,'' says 

 the Prince of Musignano, " a wonderful circumstance, that an 

 animal so tenacious of life, should die with the most violent 

 convulsions on having a little salt sprinkled upon it." 



The aquatic progression of these animals is effected prin- 

 cipally by means of the tail ; and during the act of swimming, 

 the legs are turned backwards so as to admit of the smallest 

 possible degree of resistance ; when floating quite still on the 

 surface of the water, which they frequently do, the feet are 

 stretched out at right angles to the body, and the toes spread 

 as widely as possible ; and at the bottom of the pond they 

 creep by means of their little weak feet, which also serve for 

 their progression on land. 



In the early spring the distinction between the males and 

 the females in external form, which during the winter had 



