516 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
Hills has become public property, their disappearance from 
the ponds and marshes there also is probably only a. question 
of time—already I miss them from the skating-pond next the 
road. 
The present species—the Warty Newt—is fairly common 
throughout the lowland parts of the district, inhabiting weedy 
ponds, flooded quarries, and other stagnant pools of a more or 
less permanent character, for, unlike its smaller relatives— 
especially Jf. palmata—it is, according to my experience, 
seldom found in those shallow pools and ditches that dry up 
completely during summer." It is also, I consider, a some- 
what earlier breeder than the other two—this year, for 
instance, males and females in pairs, and with the nuptial 
dress fully developed, were numerous in the upper Braid 
Pond by the middle of March, and in an early spring I have 
no doubt they might even be seen in February. Newts, 
however, do not deposit their eggs all at once in clusters 
and strings like the frog and the toad, but singly or in 
twos and threes—one on this leaf, one on that; nor do 
they begin to spawn in the simultaneous manner which 
characterises their ecaudate relatives, the combined effect 
being the prolongation ef the breeding season for several 
weeks or even months. 
The following list ef habitats from which, with but one or 
two exceptions, ] have recently examined specimens of JZ. 
cristata, will serve to indicate the extent of its present dis- 
tribution. Where I have been indebted to others for the 
11 have long suspected that many of our Warty Newts must pass the 
winter in the mud under water. According to Fatio such is the case, and 
the habit, it would seem, is not confined te the present species, ‘‘ Les 
adultes de cette espéce,” he says, ‘‘ paraissent plus exclusivement aquatiques 
qu’aucun autre de nos Tritons; quelques-uns n’abandonnent les mares que 
passe le milieu de ]’été ou seulement en automne, d’autres restent méme dans 
Veau durant toute l'année.” . . . ‘*A l'approche des frimas, et a une 
époque variable avec les circonstances, nos Tritens a créte deviennent plus 
lourds et s’enfouissent alors, la plupart dans la vase au fond des eaux, 
quelques-uns, les jeunes surtout et parfois des femelles, sous la mousse, dans 
‘une fissure du sel, ou encore sous l’écorce d’un arbre. Enfin, nous avons vu 
que l’engourdissement hivernal est, en general, assez peu profond” (Vert. 
Suisse, iii., p. 531; see also pp. 570 and 581, where the habit is referred to in 
the case of the next two species): 
