APPENDIX: NOS. XXII.—XXIII. 25 
by a cat a few days ago. This is a longer period of captivity than it 
is said in Yarrell to be able to endure. Shortly after I obtained it, 
it refused its food, and I was afraid it would die; but it was 
suggested that it wanted water, and so it proved, for it drank 
greedily what was given it, and with a constant supply of water has 
ever since remained in good health. It has been fed with raw meat, 
and only occasionally a mouse or bird has been given it. Though 
placed in a cage, in a passage where people are constantly passing, 
it never got over its natural wildness; but it knew the persons who 
were in the habit of feeding it, and made a plaintive noise when 
they were present. Now and then, at night, it raised its sharp cries. 
Its winking, courtesying and snapping made it appear singularly 
grotesque, as mentioned by Mr. Yarrell. The edges of the eyelids 
being everted gave a remarkable appearance to its large white eyes. 
I do not myself know the circumstances of its capture, but it seems 
not improbable that it was one of those turned out by Mr. Waterton 
at Walton Hall, if it is of the same species, as I suppose it is. 
3 Roxburgh Terrace, Edinburgh, 
March 1848. 
be. 40Uie 
Description or a Species or Newt’. 
[‘ Zoologist,’ vi. (1848) pp. 2149, 2150. ] 
A xinp of Newt occurs in ponds and ditches about Edinburgh which 
I have not observed elsewhere. The males are remarkable for a 
ridge on each side of their back, which gives it great breadth and 
squareness, for their wholly-webbed feet, and for the mode in which 
their tail terminates: it appears as if the tip had been nipped off, 
the central filament of it only remaining, and projecting for a 
quarter of an inch. In colour and style of marking it differs 
considerably from Lissotriton punctatus of Bell. The females are 
less easy to recognize. ‘There appear to be characteristic differences 
in the bones of the two species, at least in the vertebre and the 
skull, also in the general proportions of the head, body, and tail. 
The males do not vary much from one another: I have examined 
ornithologists had mistaken this species, the Strix noctua of Scopoli, nowadays 
recognized as Athene (or, more correctly, Carine) noctua, for the S. passerina of 
Linneeus, from which it is wholly distinct. Mr. Yarrell mentioned (British Birds, 
ed. 1, i. p. 144) one kept for more than two years in confinement, but he did not 
limit the time it was able to endure captivity. Mr. Waterton turned out his 
birds, five in number, the survivors of a dozen which he brought from Italy, at 
Walton near Waketield, 10 May, 1842 (Essays in Nat. Hist. ser. 2, p. 17), the 
passage describing their liberation being reprinted in ‘The Zoologist’ (pp. 673, 
674).— Ep. | 
1 (See Nos. XXV., XXXVI., ard XLII. ; also ‘ Memoir,’ pp. xix, xx.—Eb.] 
