1895.] DE. J. DE BEDEIAGA ON THE PTEENBAJSr NEWT. 159 



when, after having assured them that these animals neither " sting " 

 nor bite, I was bitten by one in their presence. 



M. asjiera bite not only when they are caught and squeezed 

 but also amongst themselves ; a phlegmatic female will for 

 instance bite a male when she is annoyed by his courtship. The 

 male of M. rusconii also bites, not in self-defence, but in order 

 to seize a female and prevent her from escaping when pairing. 

 M. as^era, on the contrary, does not make use of its jaws during 

 the act of fecundation ; the male seizes the female merely with 

 the muscular tail, which he raises and twists round the hind 

 part of the female's body. The attempts of the female to escape 

 are generally in vain ; each of her movements forwards in order to 

 slip out of the nojse formed by the tail of the male induces 

 the latter to press her tighter, and as soon as she is subdued 

 the male begins to give her other proofs of his amorous dis- 

 position by caressing her anal prominence with his toes. The 

 male lies during the sexual embrace under the female, their heads 

 are turned in the same direction and the anus of the male is ju^t 

 under that of the female ; the latter can therefore, as soon as she is 

 disposed to be fecundated, gather the spermatophore immediately 

 after the emission from the cloaca of the male and, so to say, suck 

 it in the cloaca without separating from the male. 



Fecundation and oviposition very often take place at the same 

 time ; the male probably exercises a pressure upon the oviducts, 

 forcing them to discharge their contents and thus acts as 

 a midwife. The attitude of the couple during their amorous 

 evolutions is shown in fig. 1 (Plate VI.). The amplexus 

 may last for hours and sometimes degenerates into a torture 

 for the female. The latter is a captive in the most awkward 

 position so long as it pleases the male ; the latter rules all 

 the movements of the couple, and the female often is in agony 

 when she feels the want of a breath of air, and has to wait until 

 the male drags her to the surface of the water. Often the 

 male fails in his attempts to embrace the female, and instead of 

 twisting his tail round her abdomen he girds higher up round her 

 neck : the female then becomes suffocated after a short while. 



M. aspera has been observed pairing towards the end of June. 

 Last year vt'hen I visited the Pyrenees the beginning of the summer 

 was wiuter-like, the ice melted in the lakes very late, in some of 

 them at the end of July ; newts appeared about the 22nd of July, 

 and I found them pairing or depositing their eggs in the last days 

 of July. I caught at the same time several full-grown larvae which 

 had of course hibernated in the lake. These larvae were still more 

 difficult to get at than the adult specimens, as they are very quick 

 in their movements and very shy. The amorous evolutions of 

 M. aspera can be observed nearly at every season of the year in 

 captivity ; very often it is sufficient to put a well-fed couple under 

 the water-pipe and let the water run over the animals, and the male 

 seizes the female immediately with his tail. 



Specimens of M. aspera are rather easily kept in captivity during 



