216 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



performances, and necessitates less mental activity and alert- 

 ness. 



VIII. 



As to parental instinct, the Newts show a distinct advance 

 on the Frog and the Toad. In the Palmate Newt the leaf of a 

 water-plant is clasped by the hind feet of the female in the well- 

 known way, and after the deposition of the egg the leaf is bent 

 back and round the egg, and secured by a sticky gland secretion. 

 Such a mode of egg-laying means that a less number of eggs 

 can be laid, for, in the place of the mechanical reproduction of 

 a large number of eggs, we have the careful concealment of a 

 relatively few, i. e. reproductive activity is in part turned over 

 into mental activity. It is shown on all hands by a study of 

 comparative psychology that our system of zoological classifica- 

 tion is even more arbitrary than there was any reason to expect. 

 In placing the Bee, for example, in a position so far below the 

 Newt, zoologists are only taking into consideration one or two 

 morphological points, such as the occurrence in the Newt of a 

 backbone and in the Bee of a tracheal system. Yet it must be 

 admitted that from the wider standpoint of general but more 

 particularly nervous organization the Bee, albeit on a different 

 branch, stands as high on the Tree of Life as does the Newt. The 

 convenience of our classification is very great, but it is apt to 

 lend us a distorted view of the actual relations between different 

 animals. Because man has a backbone, we are too disposed to 

 think that any organism without one must be a " lower animal." 

 The brain of the Newt can only be considered higher than that 

 of the Bee in reference to its form, the mould in which it is cast. 



IX. 



An account of the mental characteristics of the Newt would 

 be very incomplete which did not refer to its feeding habits and 

 its astonishing voracity. As a rule a Newt will not eat a dead 

 and motionless worm, not, I think, because it is dead, but 

 because it is motionless. I made a few observations on the 

 behaviour of some Great Crested Newts, when presented with 

 some dummy worms made of putty. If the dummies be motion- 

 less at the bottom of the pan, no notice is ever taken of them. 

 But if I took hold of the end of one by a forceps and waved it 



