A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



[Edible Frog. Rana escuknta, Linn. 



Turton and Kingston in the work named in the 

 introduction have the following remark : ' R. escul- 

 enta. The Edible Frog. Has protuberance on 

 the middle of the back, and margined sides — is less 

 common than the preceding, but by no means of 

 unfrequent occurrence,' and, no doubt influenced 

 by this statement, all the other writers cited in the 

 introduction have included the species. There is 

 no doubt, however, that their statements are 

 erroneous, and Messrs. Turton and Kingston's 

 brief description shows them to have been unac- 

 quainted with the features (absence of the dark 

 blotch from eye to angle of mouth, etc.) which 

 distinguished the Edible Frog from the common 

 species. In Britain the Edible Frog is only known 

 to have established itself in Cambridgeshire and 

 Norfolk. It has in the writer's opinion no claim 

 whatever to a place in the Devonshire fauna.] 



6. Common Toad. Bufi vulgaris, Laur. 

 Common : more plentiful than the common 



frog in the writer's experience. On lo June, 1903, 

 tadpoles fully developed and just leaving the water 

 were observed in rocky pools immediately alongside 

 the River Tavy, near Denham Bridge. 



[Natterjack Toad. Bufi calamlta, Laur. 



Introduced to the Devonshire list by Mr. J. 

 Brooking Rowe on the strength of 'a specimen 

 . . . observed ... by Mr. Reading, near Wranger- 

 ton' {Trans. Plymouth Inst. 1863, p. 88). There is 

 at present no other evidence, and the above is in- 

 suiHcient to justify giving the Natterjack a place in 

 the Devonshire list. The species may be most 

 readily distinguished from the common toad by 

 having almost invariably a yellowish line or stripe 

 down the middle of the back. The hind legs are 

 also very short, proportionately shorter than those 

 of the common toad, with the consequence that 

 the Natterjack cannot hop — a deficiency counter- 

 balanced, however, by good running powers. An 

 outlook should be kept for the species in May and 

 June, especially among such sandhills as occur on 

 the Devonshire coast.] 



CAUDATA 



7. Great Crested Newt. Molge cHstata, Laur. 

 All the local lists cited describe this newt as 



more or less common in Devonshire, but the 

 writer can find no recent evidence of its existence. 

 In four years' collecting in south Devonshire and 

 south-east Cornwall it has not been met with, nor 

 can any reliable records be found. There is a 

 specimen fi-om Exeter in the British Museum how- 

 ever, presented by Dr. Leach, and on the strength 

 of this the species is here given a place in the 

 county list. 



8. Common or Smooth Newt. Molge vulgaris, 



Linn. {Triton functatus, Latr.) 

 As in the case oi the Great Crested Newt the 



local lists speak of this species as common through- 

 out the county, but it has not been met with in 

 recent years, nor is there a county specimen in 

 existence to the writer's knowledge ; neither is our 

 highest authority, Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., 

 aware of its ever having occurred in Devonshire. 

 It appears to be replaced entirely by the Palmated 

 Newt, which is abundant, at any rate in many 

 places in south Devonshire, and probably some of 

 the statements in the local lists are due to mistaking 

 this species for the Smooth Newt. 



Two old specimens in the Torquay Museum, 

 from Berry Pomeroy, said to belong to this species, 

 are too faded and in too bad a condition generally 

 for identification, but they resemble the Palmated 

 rather than the Smooth Newt. 



The writer would have been inclined to exclude 

 the Smooth Newt from the list but for an observa- 

 tion contained in a recent letter (14 February, 

 1906) from Mr. J. Brooking Rowe, in which he 

 says, 'As to the Smooth Newt {T. functatus) I am 

 surprised at what you say [i.e. that it apparently 

 does not occur in the county]. It was without 

 question some years ago the common species, and 

 found everywhere. I was the first to observe 

 T. palmatus, and found it in a pond not far from 

 here [Plympton].' 



The Smooth Newt should be carefully searched 

 for : it may be distinguished from the Palmated 

 Newt by the spotted throat, and from the Great 

 Crested Newt by the long continuous wavy crest of 

 the breeding male extending from head to tip of 

 tail without interruption. 



9. Palmated Newt. Molge palmata, Schneid. 



Occurs in several places in the Plymouth district, 

 and in April, 1 903, 1 904, and 1905, numbers 

 were breeding in a small pit partly filled with 

 builders' rubbish, etc., in the western part of the 

 town. There are two specimens (male and female) 

 from this pit, 20 April, 1903, in the Plymouth 

 Municipal Museum (No. 68'o5). 



On 14 February, 1903, numbers of larvae of 

 the Palmated Newt were taken by the writer from 

 ponds near Cadover Bridge, Dartmoor, about 

 frog-spawn. They were about 30 mm. long and 

 still possessed external gills, having evidently passed 

 the winter in this stage. Six of these are in the 

 Plymouth Museum (No. 11*03). 



The species is mentioned by Mr. Brooking Rowe 

 as ' not uncommon in many localities,' and Parfitt 

 gives Exminster marshes, Wonford, and Dart- 

 mouth, as places where it has occurred. 



The Palmated Newt may be most readily dis- 

 tinguished from the other two species, at all times 

 of the year, by its pale yellowish throat, without 

 markings or spots. Its gradual increase in numbers, 

 apparently with the result of ousting the Smooth 

 Newt, as evidenced by the note from Mr. Brooking 

 Rowe given under that species, is a remarkable and 

 interesting phenomenon. 



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