ON TITE CUTANEOUS EXUDATION OF TRITON CRTSTATUS. 493 



Observatious on the Cutaneous Exudation of tlie Triton cristatus, 

 or Grreat Water-Newt. By Miaa Eleanor A. Oumerod. 



[Eead June 6, 1872.] 



My attention having been drawn by occasional experiment during 

 some years to the exudation of a viscid fluid accompanied by a 

 strong poppy-like smell from the cutaneous pores of tlie Common 

 Toad and the Grreat Water-Newt when under the influence of 

 chloroform vapour, I Avas induced to examine more particularly 

 into the phenomena connected with this exudation and its effects 

 as shown by the latter (the Triton cristatus, or Great Water- 

 Newt), so common in our ponds and ditches. The few notes I 

 oifer are from observation of the reptiles in the spring, when in 

 their fullest vigour. 



In their natural state, and when undisturbed, the Tritons ap- 

 pear to be scentless ; but on being alarmed or irritated, they 

 emit an odour strongly resembling that of bruised poppy-heads, 

 clearly perceptible in the open air, and sufiiciently powerful to 

 attract the attention of a person coming into a room in which they 

 are being experimented on, the smell remaining for a considerable 

 time on a hand which has been in contact with the irritated rep- 

 tile. This scent appears to be given off" equally by the Tritons at 

 all stages of growth, from the smallest I have examined, which 

 were about a sixth of the size of the full-grown reptile, to the 

 adult male and female, the only case in which it was not plainly 

 perceptible being that of a female so enormously distended by fluid 

 as to be almost unable to move. 



When kept in captivity and much disturbed, the scent and 

 the disposition to give it off", save under great irritation, appear 

 soon to decrease ; but in partially dried specimens, such as one 

 that may have escaped from the water and have harboured in a dry 

 room till nearly dead, the poppy-like smell is exceedingly powerful 

 and pungent. 



On placing about fifteen or twenty of the Ti'itons, immediately 

 after taking them from the water, under the influence of chloro- 

 form vapour, I found that a viscid liquid was exuded from the 

 pores of the skin, collecting over the wet surface of the animal 

 after death in a kind of slime — this slime forming a sticky deposit 

 on the fingers touching the reptiles-, and hardening as a kind of 

 opaque and thick varnish, but not causing pain where the skin of 

 the hand was uninjured, though trifling injuries existing or made 



LINN. JOUBN. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. XI. 36 



