50 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



consists of small worms, insects and their larvae, &c, &c. When particularly 

 hungry it has been known to indulge itself with a juvenile' tadpole. 



In April and May, the smooth newts, which are leading an aquatic life, 

 put on their gayest attire, the male newt at this time being especially con- 

 spicuous, with his bright colours and markings, set off as it were by the 

 crest or web running down his back and tail. He may often be seen now 

 resting on the top of floating grass or weeds, and seeming to enjoy the 

 warmth of the early spring sun. Later on, viz., about May or June, the 

 female deposits her eggs. Like the warty species the eggs are carefully 

 disposed of, each egg being folded up in the leaves of plants, as the following 

 note from my diary will show : — June 4th, 1874 — " In my investigations in 

 the sandpit pools, Seven Acres Field, this evening, I found a bundle of 

 willow twigs lying in one of them, and on the twigs some of the narrow 

 leaves of the willow still green. A bunch of these which were submerged, I 

 took up, and saw about a quarter of an inch of the ends of most of them 

 folded over and tightly glued down. Eaising the fold up with my pocket 

 knife, I found a small, clear, oval, jelly-like egg between, in which was a 

 small greenish- white object like a tadpole, I then knew them to be the nearly 

 hatched eggs of this newt, several of which were resting on the bottom of 

 the pool. Bunches of ordinary broadish-bladed grasses hung over and in 

 the pools, the blades of which the newts had utilised, some of the blades 

 having been folded two or three times, and an egg enclosed in each fold, I 

 noticed four eggs placed at intervals along one grass-blade." Other observers 

 have said that the eggs of this newt are not always folded in the leaves of 

 plants, but are sometimes laid on stones or at the roots of water-weeds. 



The egg of the smooth newt when first extruded, is oval, jelly-like, and 

 transparent. In about three weeks time the folds of the enclosing leaf begin 

 to open, caused no doubt by the expansion of the egg, and a pale-coloured 

 tadpole with bright black eyes is ushered into the watery world. It is a 

 most active little creature, darting about in the water with great rapidity. 

 In process of time the forelegs make their appearance, then the hind ones, 

 and a perfect but diminutive newt is the result. Its growth is very gradual, 

 competent observers saying that when three months old its length is only 

 about an inch. In June and July many of the newts both large and small 

 leave the ditches and take to the land. I have often seen this small 

 brown eft slowly picking its way among the plants in our flower-beds, and 

 when a boy always imagined it to be a lizard. 



Like the warty species, the smooth newt often changes its skin, generally 

 concluding the operation by swallowing its cast-off clothes. A careful 

 observer (Mr. C. Eobson, of Newcastle-on-Tyne) once discovered a tadpole 



