THE WATEE-NEWT. 71 



Say (the water-newt, or eft*) will frequently bite at tlie 

 angler's bait, and is often caught on bis hook. I used to 

 take it for granted that the salamandra aquatica was hatched, 

 lived, and died in the water. But John Ellis, Esq., F.E.S. 

 (the eoralliae Ellis), asserts, iu a letter to the Eoyal Society, 

 dated June the 5th, 1766, in his account of the mud iguana, 

 amphibious iipes from South Carolina, that the water-eft, or 

 newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of 

 frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand his 

 meaning, I shall give it in his own words. Speaking of the 

 opercula, or coverings to the gills of the mud igua/na, he 

 proceeds to say, that " The form of these pennated coverings 

 approaches very near to what I have some time ago observed 

 in the larva, or aquatic state of our Enghsh lacerta, known 

 by the name of eft, or newt, which serve them for coverings 

 to their giLls, and for fins to swim with while in this state ; 

 and wliieh they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, when 

 they change their state, and become land animals, as I have 

 observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself." 



Linnaeus, in his Systema Naturm, hints at what Mr. Ellis 

 advances, more than once. 



Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but 

 one.venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, 

 and that is the viper. As you propose the good of mankind 

 to be an object of your publications, you will not omit to 

 mention common salad oil as a sovereign remedy against 

 the bite of the viper.f As to the blind worm (anguis fra- 

 gilis, so called because it snaps in sunder with a smaU blow) 



* A friend of mine put a newt into a "bottle of brandy, and it lived ten 

 minutes in it. This -will prove how capable they are of undergoing the 

 extremes of heat and cold, as they have been known to recover after having 

 been frozen perfectly hard. There are also undoubted proofs of newts having 

 lived in the intestines of human beings. A leech, also, after it has been 

 frozen and then thawed, will live and suck eagerly. Both newts, lizards, 

 and some other amphibia, are provided with lungs, and might be supposed 

 capable of uttering sounds, but they are altogether mute. — Ed. 



"t A blind worm, that I kept alive for nine weeks, would, when touched, 

 turn and bite, although not very sharply : its bite was not sufficient to draw 

 blood, but it always retained its hold until released. It drank sparingly of 

 milk, raising the head when drinking. It fed upon the little white slug 

 (limax' agrestis, Linn.) so common in fields and gardens, eating six or seven 

 of them one after the other ; but it did not eat them every day. It invariably 

 took them in one position. Elevating its head slowly above its victim, it 



