APPENDIX: NO. XXV. 27 
XXV. 
Nove on tHe 7'RrTON PALMIPES OF DavuDIN |. 
[‘ Zoologist,’ vi. (1848) pp. 2265-2268. ] 
I nave to report the existence of our recently ascertained Newt in 
the extreme north of the island. On the Ist of August I found 
several females and one male in a little fresh-water peaty pool, a few 
hundred yards from high-water mark, on the side of the hills which 
rise from Loch Eribol, and on the west side of the loch. It is an 
inlet of the sea, about sixteen miles to the east of Cape Wrath, in 
the north-coast of Sutherland, celebrated for the grandeur and 
wildness of its scenery. The heather which clothes the hills that 
slope down to its banks, conceals, for the most part, the grooves 
and scratches made by the last of the icebergs that rounded them 
to their present shape; steep mounds of broken fragments may still 
mark the spot where they grounded, and, as their soft parts shrunk 
and disappeared, left only their skeletons to the present day, whilst 
the distant head of the loch is crowned by perpendicular cliffs, 
backed by lofty mountains—the birth right of the Red Deer and the 
Eagle. Of the Newts I found in this interesting locality, the male 
had still his spring dress, though it seemed in a retrograde state. 
In that far north latitude the tadpoles of the Frog were still in the 
water, though some of them had acquired their four legs. A month 
later I found some very young Newts, which are probably of this 
species, under stones by the side of ponds, within a mile or two of 
John o? Groat’s house or its site, accompanied as usual by young 
Frogs. In Orkney I learnt nothing of it, but it may be there. 
In Shetland I was assured no reptiles exist. 
It has been a great pleasure to me to find my notice in the 
‘Zoologist’ (Zool. 2149) followed up by such interesting papers as 
those of Mr. Baker, Mr. Newman, and M. Deby. Mr. Baker has 
established his claim to the prior discovery in this country ; 
Mr. Newman showed the probable state of the case with respect to 
nomenclature, whilst the sagacity of his conjectures was proved by 
M. Deby, at least so far as the true name of the Newt supposed to 
be new. 
Not having seen specimens of Mr. Bell’s Lissotriton palmipes, I 
cannot presume to say it is merely a form of L. punctatus ; but 
I can state that from the characters given of it in his work I had 
supposed that some Newts I forwarded to Mr. Bell were his 
palmipes, which upon examination he himself declared to be 
punctatus: this I believe I mentioned to Mr. Newman. But it is 
not only the Lissotriton palmipes of Mr. Bell that he has to 
re-establish in the new edition of his ‘ Reptiles’: it is to be hoped 
that he will give further characters of his Triton Bibronii and of 
Rana Scotica. 
1 (See No. XXIII,—Epb.] 
