Mr. J. Higginbottom on the British Ti'itons. 377 



arranged a watery and an earthy place of abode for my Tritons. 

 I put a number of these into the water. In a short space of 

 time they all left it and crept into the crevices above and under 

 the stones, and there remained in a state of hibernation during 

 the whole of the winter. About a fortnight afterwards (on the 

 23rd of October, 1843), I tried a second experiment which I 

 thought would be still more conclusive : — I obtained a large 

 long cylindrical glass vessel ; in the centre and at the lowest 

 part of this I secured a piece of pumice-stone with common 

 cement ; around the base of the stone I put some soft clay and 

 poured in rain-water to the depth of three inches, leaving the 

 upper part of the pumice-stone uncovered. About three inches 

 above the water I arranged pieces of wood across each other in 

 the form of latticework, supporting it by small wooden pillars, 

 and leaving holes large enough for the animals to creep through, 

 and I placed an inclined plane of wood with notches so as readily 

 to allow them to ascend to the latticework if so disposed. I put 

 twenty Ti'itons into the water below, and placed clay and some irre - 

 gular flattened stones upon the latticework to the height of six 

 inches. The top of the vessel was secured by means of muslin. 

 The Tritons found their way in a few hours from the water through 

 the latticework into the crevices and holes formed by the clay 

 and stones j two indeed more bulky than the rest were some 

 time in attaining this object, but these succeeded ultimately. 

 They remained in this situation of comparative dryness during 

 the whole winter, except that one or two occasionally dropped 

 through a crevice into the water. On one occasion, about 

 Christmas 1843, the sun had during two or three days consider- 

 able power, and in the afternoon of the 24th December I observed 

 two bats flying about some old buildings in a neighbouring 

 village. On the same day I observed that the Tritons in the 

 glass were restless, and that several of them descended and 

 bathed their tails in the water, but I did not see them go into it; 

 they soon regained their former situation, where they remained 

 in a state of hibernation till the following spring. 1 have ob- 

 served that either a very wet or very dry situation is fatal to the 

 Triton during its state of hibernation, and that a moderately damp 

 one is always chosen for that state of existence. 



In the autumn of 1843 a considerable number of Tritons 

 escaped during several wet days, from two large earthenware 

 vessels which I had placed in a garden upwards of thirty yards 

 from my house; some of these were found in an adjoining 

 garden, but several months afterwards, on the 2nd of December, 

 eleven (nine of the Triton asper, and two of the Triton Icevis) 

 were discovered coiled together behind and under a broken brick 

 at the further end of a deep rock cellar. They had thus found 



