158 OUE EEPTILES. 



the habit of going down the throats of those 

 people who are so silly as either to go to sleep 

 in the fields with their mouths open, or to drink 

 from the streams in which the dark lewkers 

 (newts in the aquatic state) harbour : they are 

 also said to be swallowed by the thirsty cattle. 

 In consequence, the country people kill them 

 whenever they meet with them on land, and 

 poison the stream they are found in by putting 

 lime into the cattle's drinking-pools. In either 

 case the result is the same, the reptile taking up 

 his quarters in the interior of his victim in some 

 way, it would puzzle a physiologist to explain 

 how. It contrives to live on the nutriment taken 

 by the luckless individual or animal, so that, 

 deprived of its nourishment, the latter pines 

 away; nay, so comfortable does the newt make 

 herself, that, not content with living by herself, 

 she contrives to bring up a little family. Often 

 have I been told of the man who got rid of a 

 mamma newt and six young ones by the follow- 

 ing recipe, which I am assured is infallible : The 

 patient must abstain from all fluids for four-and- 

 twenty hours, and eat only salt meats ; at the 

 expiration of that time, being very thirsty, he 

 must go and lie open-mouthed over a running 

 stream the noisier the better ; when the newts, 

 dying of thirst, and hearing the music of the 

 water, cannot resist the temptation, but come 



