486 COUNT M, G. PEEACCA ON AN ITALIAN NEWT. [June 7, 



able to reach the fully adult and breeding state without meta- 

 morphosing, as is known to be the case in M. alpestris. 



I met with M. italica also at St. Cataldo (12 k. from Lecce) on 

 the sea-shore, where it seems to be confined to the fresh^^ater 

 marshes running at a short distance along the coast of the Adriatic 

 from Brindisi to Tarauto. Curiously enough, I never found it in 

 the reservoirs or tanks in the gardens near Lecce. 



The specimens from St. Cataldo are remarkable by their extra- 

 ordinary small size, being nearly half that of specimens from 

 Potenza. Perhaps the fact is due to the early drying up of the 

 marshes in the summer, so that the development of the larvaB 

 becomes more rapid and they do not attain their full typical size. 



A very badly preserved female specimen, labelled 21. vulgaris, 

 from Campobasso, Molise, is in the collection of the Turin Museum, 

 but a careful examination proves that it belongs to my new species. 



Prof. H. Giglioli, in his " Elenco dei Mammiferi, degli uccelli e 

 dei Jiettili ittiofagi appartenenti alia fauna italica e Catalogo degli 

 Anfibii e dei Pesci italiani " (estratto del Catalogo generale della 

 sezione itaUana alia Esposizione iuternazionale della pesca in 

 Berlino, nell' anno 1880), at page 15 mentions Triton tceniatus 

 (=31. vulgaris) from Palizzi, near Gerace, Calabria. 



Through the kindness of Prof. Giglioli, who, at my request, sent 

 me the Palizzi specimens, I am now able to state that they are, as 

 I had already hinted in my former paper, true M. italica. There are 

 four specimens, all females, which were collected in June 1878 by 

 Prof. G. CaAanna. The strong spirit used in preserving them has 

 caused their teguments so to contract that the back shows, instead 

 of a groove, a kind of longitudinal produced ridge due to the 

 prominence of the vertebral column. Their size equals that of 

 the specimens from Potenza, although Palizzi stands at no great 

 elevation above sea-level. 



Molge italica has an extensi\'e range in the peninsula, as it seems 

 to inhabit the whole of south-eastern Italy, while M. vulgaris, 

 subsp. meridionalis, seems not to have as yet been found south 

 of a line connecting Ancona to the Gran Sasso d'ltalia and 

 extending to Naples \ south of which we are not acquainted with 

 the presence of this species -. 



Prom what we know at present, Molge italica exists in Molise 

 (Campobasso), in Basilicata (Potenza), in Terra d'Otranto (near 

 Lecce), very probably in Capitanata, and in Calabria, along or at a 

 short distance from the coasts of the Ionic Sea (Palizzi) ; but it does 

 not seem to be found in the interior of Calabria, at least I was not 

 able to discover any trace of it at Cosenza, at Catanzaro Sala, and 

 on the elevated plateaus of Aspromonte (about 1200 m. above sea- 

 level), where pools and marshes are frequent and in which the 



' Dr. Wolterstorfi, of Magdeburg, recently informed me be had received 

 some specimens of M. vulgaris from Naples. 



^ I did not succeed in March past in discovering it in the plains of Salerno. 



