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Histories. I have not unfrequently met with the young in great numbers 

 together, smaller in size than the young of the frog when it leaves the 

 water, and in places remote from watercourse or pond. From its 

 known habit of entering holes and fissures which it can never again 

 quit of its own will, could the fact be established that this reptile can 

 propagate in moist places, or in a very small quantity of water, it would 

 enable us to account for its appearance in numbers, in the anomalous 

 situations in which it has been lately discovered, as set forth in The 

 Times. 



Triton cristatus, the Salamander or Warty-Newt, appears to replace the 

 common species in certain portions of the district ; for instance, in the 

 neighbourhood of Tortw or th, where, during one season at least, it appeared 

 to abound, whilst the first named was comparatively rare. 



The statement in the English Cyclopcedia, "that this species habitually 

 lives in the water, and is seldom to be found on land, \inless the pond 

 which has been its abode is dried up, and the animal is obliged to walk 

 in search of another," does not accoi-d with my own observations. At 

 the end of the breeding .season this sjjecies uses every endeavour, like 

 T. punctatus, to leave the water ; and I have found it under stones 

 near ponds where no diminution of the water had taken place. In 

 the course of the last year a veiy large specimen escaped from my 

 vivarium, and was found early during the present spiing in the cellar, 

 in perfect health. Upon being handled it emitted a powerful odour 

 inpupportably disgusting. The largest sjiecimen I ever saw of this 

 species was found during a dry summer under a stone in a ditch at 

 Corse, measuring fully nine inches in length. 



"Whilst seai'ching for small mollusca amongst the roots of grass, I 

 have found, not unfrequently at a considerable distance from water, a 

 small newt, which agrees in general character with the description of the 

 young of this species, but thinner and more delicate in all its proportions; 

 and which can bear the privation of moist atmosphei'e for a very short time. 

 Upon transferring one of these to a collecting-box, for two or three 

 hours only, upon my arrival at home I found it dead, and so dry and 

 rigid that no further process was necessary for its preser\'ation. It may 

 possibly be the young of the next species. 



Lissotriton punctatus, au^t., the Smooth Newt, is the commonest 

 species in the Vale of Gloucester, and is much more active in its habits 

 than the last named. 



Lissotriton palmipes (1) is a species mentioned by Mr. Baker, in the 

 paper before referred to, as occurring in the neighbouring coiinty of 

 Somerset, but totally unknown to me. I nan)ie tt here merely to call 



