56 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



would have thought of namely, their minuteness. 

 There are physical reasons why the minuteness of the 

 body they are not bigger than one of these letters 

 prevents the freezing of the blood. It is a quaint 

 idea, finding safety in being not merely a pigmy, but a 

 Lilliputian. 



There is a small Newt (Triton alpestris) which 

 ascends the Alps to between 6,000 and 7,000 feet; but 

 it shows no special fitness for mountains, and it occurs 

 also on low ground in the Netherlands. It is other- 

 wise with the Alpine Salamander (Salamandra atra) 

 which is restricted to the heights of the European 

 Alps, from 2,000 to 9,000 feet. It prefers to live within 

 reach of the spray of a waterfall or in places where 

 there is damp moss. One of its special adaptations is 

 that it produces only two young ones at a time, 

 whereas its near relative the Spotted Salamander pro- 

 duces from fifteen to fifty. Moreover, the young of 

 the Alpine Salamander are fully developed before they 

 leave the mother, whereas the young of the Common 

 Salamander have to pass through some noteworthy 

 changes after they burst from the just-laid eggs. The 

 unborn young of the Alpine Salamander have three 

 pairs of long red gills, which are pressed against the 

 wall of the mother's oviduct so that an exchange of 

 gas is effected between the blood of the offspring and 

 the blood of the mother. But more than that: the 

 gills are used for absorbing yolk material furnished 

 by other eggs which do not come to anything. These 

 peculiarities must be connected with the fact that the 

 Alpine Salamander lives at altitudes where there are 

 few waterpools suitable for the larvae to swim in. The 

 number of young has been greatly reduced, but they 



