370 NATURAL HISTORY. 



It is long-bodied, and has a short tail, which is more and more compressed towards the tip. The 

 head is small, and the neck also, and it is rounded. Its eyes project, and the nostrils are well in front. 

 The skin is smooth, and as it were polished, and has folds and mucous pores, and is of an. ashy-grey 

 or blue-grey colour marked with white on the Hanks. It is a small animal with four digits, and is 

 called, from having an oval-shaped tongue, EUipsoglossa iicnvia (the Spotted Ellipsoglossa). Another 

 kind is, on the contrary, fitted by its compressed body and tail for living in water, and is the Clouded 

 Ellipsoglossa, and is also from Japan. 



The next family, the Salanumilri'Ue, contains the Newts and Efts, and the Salamanders, and 

 although the well-known shape and the outside characters would enable its genera to be associated 

 more or less, it is advisable to state that the members of this family have the palatine teeth implanted 

 on the inner margin of the diverging and posterior prolongations of the palatine bones, and that they 

 are in two rows placed longitudinally and diverging posteriorly. 



The Tritons (genus Triton) are numerous in species and individuals, and besides the structural 

 peculiarities of their family, they have the body covered with warty tubercles ; the four short limbs 

 have toes, four on the front, and five on the hinder, and are without nails. The male has well-marked 

 crests on the back and tail, which are not continuous, and there are no p.irotids, but there are glandu- 

 lar pores above and behind the eyes, and also a longitudinal series of similar pores on each side of 

 the body. They are very Lizard-like in sha;i3, an I the tongue is globular, free at the sides slightly, 

 and free behind, where it is pointed. 



The Great Water Newt* (Plate 48) grows to the length of six inches, and is the largest of the 

 British kinds. Common in ponds and ditches, it preys upon the water insects, and during the spring 

 feasts on the Tadpoles of the Common Frog. They even devour the other and smaller species of Triton, 

 which they seize, according to Bell, with ferocity, and hold fast in spite of the efforts made by the victim 

 to escape. They will bolt specimens of the Small Eft, which wriggle and give much trouble in the act of 

 swallowing. It is a very aquatic species, and rarely leaves the water, and during the winter it remains 

 torpid at the bottom of ponds and ditches until the warmth of spring returns. It has a flat head, and 

 the upper lip overhangs the lower, and the trunk is nearly continuous with the head, the intervening 

 neck being marked with a fold of skin. The body is thick and round, and the upper parts are blackish- 

 brown with darker round spots, and the under are bright reddish-orange, with round black spots. The 

 sides are dotted with white, and the sides of the tail in the male are a beautiful pearly white. The 

 male has a back crest during the breeding season which disappears in the winter. They swim princi- 

 pally with the tail, the legs being turned backwards ; but when they float on the surface of the water 

 they sprawl their limbs out and their toes also. At the bottom of ponds and on land they crawl with 

 the aid of their weak extremities. They change their skin, and it comes away in shreds. The female 

 is like the male in the winter, but she has no trace of a tail crest. The Prince of Musigiiano states 

 that the Newt dies in convulsions if salt be sprinkled on it. The egg-laying is a curious process. 



Rusconi noticed, whilst watohing the egg-laying of the Triton, that the females from time to time 

 pressed back their hind limbs, and that in a few moments after this action they laid one or two eggs, 

 which remained attached to them, so that some of the animals might be seen moving to and fro in the 

 tub, with two or three eggs thus attached. 



He made a small bunch of the plant Polygonum jjersicaria, and put the stems of them under a 

 large stone to confine them at the bottom. In the evening he inspected the tub, and found all his 

 Tritons so comfortably accommodated by the help of the plants, that by keeping the head a little 

 elevated their nostrils were kept above the sm-face of the water, so that their respiration was 

 easy. 



Whilst under the influence of surprise at this, he observed one of them approach one of the leaves 

 of the plant, as if to smell it. The animal then moved gently on the leaf in the direction of its breadth, 

 and, resting upon it, pushed back its hind lirnbs so as to fold back and enclose the leaf between its 

 feet. It stayed about a minute in this position, and then went away, leaving the leaf so that its apex 

 v/as turned back on the petiole. After a lapse of three minutes, Rusconi saw the Triton approach 

 another leaf, apparently disposed to place itself thereon, when, casting his eyes accidentally on the 

 other branches, he discovered many other leaves doubled back. He immediately took the bunch 



* Triton cristatus. 



