70 ANOTHEE NEWT STORY. 



were wagged with a Lord Burleigh kind of em- 

 phasis. 



Then there was the sexton-clerk-gardener-musi- 

 cian and general factotum, who had a newt tale of 

 his own to tell. He had been cutting grass in the 

 churchyard, and an effet ran at him, and bit him on 

 the thumb. He chopped off the effet's head with his 

 knife, but his thumb was very bad for a week. 



Once they got the better of the argument, at all 

 events in the eyes of the owner of the farming stock, 

 and my poor newts were ejected. It happened 

 thus : — 



Two or three specimens I kept in my own room in 

 a glass vase, in order to watch them more closely ; 

 and some six or seven others lived as stock in the 

 large horse-trough, from whence they could be taken 

 when required, 



One day the proprietor came to me and ordered 

 the destruction of my newts, for they had killed one 

 of his calves. 



" But," I remonstrated, " they cannot kill a calf 

 or even a mouse, for they have no fangs and very 

 little mouths. Besides, the calf has not come near 

 this trough." 



So saying, I took up several of the newts, opened 

 their mouths — no easy matter, by the way — and 

 showed that they had no fangs. And I urged, that 

 even if they had been as poisonous as rattlesnakes, 

 it would not have made any difference to the calf, 



