536 AMPHIBIA. 



The largest Water Newt of England, is the CRESTED TRITON, 

 T. crislatus, about six inches in length, and which feeds on 

 aquatic insects, the Tadpole of the Frog, and even the smaller 

 species of Water Newts. The manner in which the female de- 

 posits her eggs, is very singular. When present, she chooses 

 the leaf of the smart-weed, (Polygonum Persicaria.) as the place 

 for the deposit. "She first applies her head to the edges of a 

 leaf, and turns it with her snout in such a way that the lower 

 surface of the leaf is turned towards her breast ; then, with her 

 fore -paws, she passes the turned leaf beneath her body, seizes 

 it with her hind-paws, and conducts it beneath the vent, folding 

 it, at the same time, and forming with it an angle, the opening 

 of which is directed towards the tail. The egg, in escaping 

 from the vent, would thus pass through the middle of the angle 

 formed by the leaf, but the Salamander (or Newt) stops it in its 

 fall by her hind feet, shuts up this angle with them, and thus 

 forms in the leaf a fold in which the egg is held. Still, on the 

 removal of the feet, the egg would fall to the bottom of the water; 

 but the careful parent, before she quits the leaf, folds it so firmly 

 with her hind feet, that the gluten with which the envelop of the 

 egg is surrounded, spreads from the pressure on the two internal 

 surfaces of the leaf, and prevents the folds from opening." (See 

 Plate XIII. fig. 9, which represents the Triton on the leaf; also, 

 for the figures in the same plate, representing the animal as it 

 appears in the transition from the tadpole to the perfect state, and 

 the explanations of these figures, as attached to the plate.) 



AQUATIC NEWTS. 



These are distinguished by having the tail flattened on the 

 sides, and by the absence of glands from the sides of the head. 

 The body is covered with watery excrescences. 



These reptiles spend nearly all their lives in water. They 

 are remarkable for the facility with which they successfully 

 reproduce their tail when it is cut off. 



The males, during the breeding season, are distinguished by 

 a high membranous crest upon the back, and another one along 

 the upper side of the tail. The limbs are short and feeble, and 

 progression in water is effected by the paddle-like action of the 

 tail. It should be remarked, that as the Land and Water Newts 

 are, some of them, at least, closely alike in anatomical structure, 

 some naturalists reject this division, and have introduced other 

 distinctive terms. 



