NEWT 



NEWTON 



479 



with black spots. The male is more vividly coloured 

 than the female, the sides of the tail are of a beau- 

 tiful pearly colour, and at the breeding season he 

 develops a large back crest ( tig. 1 ). The movements 



Kg. 1. Great Water Newt (Triton crittatut). 



in slow swimming are accomplished by means of the 

 tail and the limits ; but in fast swimming lit h pairs 

 of limbs are laid alongside the liody, ami the move- 

 ments are effected by rapid undulations of the 

 body and tail. On laii'.l they crawl by means of 

 their weak limits. In summer they cast their skin 

 perhaps many times, sometimes by complete slough- 

 ing, but sometimes it conies off in shreds. In winter 

 they generally remain at the Itottom of ponds ami 

 ditches. Like many other animals of the same 

 genus, they show great power of reproducing lost 

 parts, the tail, limits, and portions of the head 

 being very perfectly restored, even several times in 

 succession. They are also able to withstand great 

 cold. In laying lier eggs the female deposits them 

 on the leaves of aquatic plants, each egg being 

 deposited separately below a leaf, which is then 

 folded, apex to (tetiole, by means of the newt's 

 hind limb*, so as to retain the egg in position. The 

 embryo grows rapidly and becomes 'tent in shape. 

 In seven days the gills and legs appear as small 

 knobs. By the ninth day the tail is oar-slmprd, 

 ami the heart may lie seen beating. On the tenth 

 day the fore-limits and claspers appear beside the 

 gills. In two or three days more the eyes appear 

 .is distinct structures, and the gills become leaf- 

 like. About the fourteenth day the embryo escapes 

 from tlie egg and holds on to leaves of wa'ter-plants 

 by ans of its claspers. At this stage of its exist- 

 ence it resemble.* a tish in outward form and in- 

 ternal structure, and its whole anatomy may very 

 easily lie studied on account of its transparency. 

 About twelve days after leaving the egg the fore- 

 feet are longer, rudiments of toes are visible ; the 

 gills, at first simple, become fringe-like, and red 

 blood circulates through them, and the claspers 



Fig. 2. Larvae of Triton erittattu. 



A, condition before leaving the efti? ; B, foul pole nhortly after it 

 li hatched ; C, at about the twenty-second day ; D, at about 

 the forty-tecond day. 



disappear. About the twenty-second day it begins 

 to breathe by means of its developing lungs ; the 

 gills are still large, and the hind-legs begin to 

 sprout. This change takes place concurrently with 



the change of diet from vegetable to animal food. 

 Altout the forty-second day after hatching, the gills 

 begin to grow smaller and are soon obliterated. 

 The newt then seeks to leave the water, respires 

 atmospheric air only, and goes on to sexual matur- 

 ity. In some circumstances individuals of this 

 species occasionally retain some of the external 

 appearances of immaturity in spite of having be- 

 come capable of reproduction ( a phenomenon more 

 common, however, in a European species, T. nljies- 

 tris, which may become sexually perfect even in its 

 tadpole stage ) ; and in rare instances they may bring 

 forth their young alive as do the true salamanders. 

 The Great Water Newt is seldom found on land. 

 The Common Smooth Newt (T. jnmctatus), a 

 smaller sjtecies about 3J inches long, is much more 

 common in Britain than the great newt, from which 

 it also differs in having a smooth skin, the back 

 crest continuous with the tail crest, and in being 

 often found on land. Its eggs are laid in the axils 

 of leaves quite as often as under the leaves. The 

 Palinated Smooth Newt (T. palmipes) is the only 

 other common British species. It has been found 

 in various parts of Britain from the Isle of Wight 

 to the north of Scotland. The toes of the hind foot 

 are weblted, the tail ends in a long filament, and 

 the back crest is straight ; these characteristics are 

 prominent only in the breeding season. 



Newts form very interesting inmates of aquaria, 

 where they may be easily reared and kept ; and 

 their graceful movements and development interest 

 the olwerver. The words netct and eft are really 

 identical, a neirt = an eu-t, A.S. efi-tn, just as an 

 atliler resulted from a tiatMcr by mistake. 



, ( 1 ) capital of Harvey county, Kansas, 

 134 miles liv rail S\V. of Topeka, is the centre of a 

 rich coallield. Pop. ( 1!X10) 6-20K. (2) A city of 

 Massachusetts, 7 miles W8W. of Itoston by rail, 

 and almost surrounded by the Charles Hiver. It 

 contains many suburban residences belonging to 

 citizens of Boston, and has manufactures of cloth, 

 silk, shoddy, machinery, glue, &c. Pop. (I860) 

 8382; (1890)24,379; (1900)33,587. 



Newton, SIR ISAAC, the greatest of natural 

 philosophers, was born on 25th December (o.s. ) 

 1042 year remarkable in English history for 

 the breaking out of the Civil War, and doubly 

 remarkable in the history of science by the birth 

 of Newton and the death of Galileo. 'The farm- 

 house he was born in, still preserved religiously, is 

 at the hamlet of Woolstlioipe in Cottersworth 

 parish, Lincolnshire, 8 miles S. of (iiantham (q.v.), 

 at whose grammar-school the boy received his early 

 education. On the 5th of June 16o'l lie left home 

 for Cambridge, where he was admitted as suhsizar 

 at Trinity College. On the 8th of July following 

 he matriculated as sizar of the same college. He 

 immediately applied himself to the mathematical 

 studies of the place, and within a very few years 

 must have not only made himself master of "most 

 of the works of any value on such subjects then 

 existing, but had also begun to make some progress 

 in the methods for extending the science. In 1665, 

 in which year betook his B.A., he committed to 

 writing his first discovery on fluxions ; and in 1666, 

 according to Voltaire's Lettres sur les Anglais 

 (1733), the fall of an apple, as he walked in the 

 garden at Woolsthorpe, suggested the most magnifi- 

 cent of bis subsequent discoveries the law of uni- 

 versal gravitation. On his first attempt, however, 

 by means of the law so suggested to his mind, to 

 explain this lunar ami planetary motions, he em- 

 ployed an estimate then in use of the radius of the 

 earth which was so erroneous as to produce a dis- 

 crepancy between the real force of gravity and that 

 required by theory to explain the motions, corre- 

 sponding to the respective figures 16'1 and 13'9. 



