The TOW NATUBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 63. MARCH, 1885. V 0L . 6. 



THE COMMON SMOOTH NEWT. 



(ZqpMnus punctalus. 

 By W. H. WARNER. 



POOLS, ditches and ponds are the spring haunts of this beautiful little 

 reptile, and of these perhaps the preference is given to the first 

 mentioned. Quarry pools seem to be a very favourite resort of the smooth 

 newt, and in most of these it may be found from early spring till well into 

 summer, or even later. Though this species, and its larger relative the 

 warty newt (See Young Naturalist Vol 5, p. 199), are often found in the 

 same pool together, yet I have an idea that the smaller species does not care 

 about the near proximity of its big congener. Thus, in a certain quarry-pool 

 in Berkshire, 1 am almost always certain of meeting with punctatus in 

 abundance, but seldom see a cristatus anywhere near. In this pool I once 

 liberated an exceedingly lively pair of these smooth skinned newts, which, 

 after travelling all the way from Ireland, turned out of the damp anacharis 

 in which they were packed, and swam as freely in the Berkshire pool as if 

 they had been bred there. 



The present species is the most common of all the newts, and is found in 

 every part of the United Kingdom, even Ireland, where in some districts it 

 i is very common indeed. Newts as a rule are never found in other but 

 lowland waters, but among the mass of notes I have collected in reference 

 to the British Eeptiles, is one in which it states that a newt was taken in 

 1882, in a pool on Cader Idris, one of the Welsh mountains, two thousand 

 feet above the sea level. My authority does not give the species of newt 

 which was taken in this elevated situation, but most probably it would be 

 the present species. The smooth newt, like its bigger relative, appears very 

 early in the year. Some are seen on land at this time, and others in the 

 water. I once saw a female moving about among the plants in a flower bed 

 so early as January 30th. But the end of February or the beginning of 

 March may be set down as the time for the appearance of our newts, both in 

 the water and on land. The habits of the smooth newt in the water do not 

 appear to be materially different from those of the warty kind. Its food 



