18 Notes on the Life-history of the Common Newt. |January, 
swimming under the ice in a pond near Fort Hamilton. It is 
gregarious, bears confinement well, and I have often kept it for 
over a year in my aquarium. 
Its food is very varied; it will take aquatic and other insects, 
small tadpoles, worms, especially earthworms, and it will eat 
small pieces of raw beef and fish when hungry. Though a harm- 
less little reptile, it will quarrel occasionally with its companions 
about food. I have seen one seize a worm twice its own length and 
try to gulp it down holding it with the hands; a second would 
snatch up the other end and begin swallowing it till the two met. 
Then such a pulling and wriggling ensued, till the strongest or 
most persistent succeeded in making the other disgorge its meal. 
Sometimes it would take nearly a day before the worm vanished, the 
first part having to be digested before the last could be swallowed. 
In confinement they.should have only the smallest worms, as the 
large ones disagree with them, and I have often had them die 
after one of these gorging meals. They are very fond of the 
small fresh-water bivalves so abundant in most of the ponds they 
frequent. Many are swallowed whole; one I dissected had four 
—shells and all—in its stomach. 
When caught the little harmless creatures do not try to escape 
but hang limp in the fingers. They are, however, as cunning as 
all the rest of their race. I placed one on my table to examine 
it, when it crawled under a sheet of paper and crouched down as 
if asleep. I was called away for a few minutes, and on my return 4 
found my little friend had absconded. Now it had not attempted _ 
to move for over an hour in my presence, but was evidently at 
-once conscious of my absence. It was sometime before I found it — 
on the opposite side of the room, it was so nearly the color of the — 
carpet. It never does to trust to the apparent helplessness of any 
animal, for what it lacks in outward means of defense it is sure to 
make up in cunning. 
I accidentally found out one of this animal’s most deadly ene- a 
mies. I once brought home a lot of the viridescens in a box of 
leaves in which I had thrown some wire-worms, thinking they 
might serve as food, they were so abundant around the pond. 
The next morning I found my poor little prisoners had all been — 
1Sometimes they emit a faint cry, but this is generally in the breeding season. It 4 
is a faint squealing sound not unlike that made by the Spelerpes ruder, but not SO — 
loud, and is I believe only heard from the males, 
EREE E a 
