222 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



advance as it is on the Common Toad and Frog — only serves to 

 show the bluntness of its perceptions. 



The mother-liquor, from whioh all distinctive traits of animal 

 intelligence crystallize out, is a combination of variety of experi- 

 ence and individual mental variation which are largely absent 

 in the Newt. Only a strong effort of the imagination, after a 

 careful, first-hand study of the behaviour of Newts, can conjure 

 up in our minds a comparatively truthful picture of the dreary 

 monotony and automatism of the life of the Newt as a whole. 

 Such a picture, it is needless to point out, is very different from 

 those glowing accounts of the romance of animal life presented to 

 an innocent public in many of our English magazines. There 

 is no harm in these stories if they are honestly given their 

 correct designation — fairy stories. But the pity is that their 

 authors palm them off as Natural History. 



