HEPWORTH : ENEMIES OF THE LARVAL FROG AND TOAD, 



43 



are among the most harmless creatures known, Some critical naturalist, 

 glancing his eye over this, may, perhaps, be inclined to say that the denial of 

 their venomous powers is unnecessary, as no man of any intelligence believes 

 such to be the case, If such there be, I hope he will excuse the trivial (1) 

 ^tatement when I inform him that I have known village pastors, and " gen-. 

 tlemen of the first water," who ■ do not scruple to express their belief in this, 

 to him, absurd notion, The treatment of these poor animals from young and 

 old, from the unlearned, and, I ahi sorry to be compelled to add, the learned 

 too, strongly bears out the truth of the vulgar but strong proverb " Give a 

 dog a bad name and hang him," ISTo manner of torture is deemed too severe 

 for one so vile as he, In country villages I have heard of, and in some in-, 

 (stances been in a manner compelled to witness, deeds of cruelty exercised 

 upon these helpless and harmless creatures, that Aver§ worthy of a I^ero j and 

 compared to which the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition were acts of mercy, 

 ^OT are these outrages perpetrated in secret — they are enacted in presence of 

 an admiring parent, under the approving nod of the squire, or, before the 

 gilently £},cquiescing pastor, Alas for the boasted intelligence of the 19tl\ 

 centuiy ! 



Though the tritons when viewed through an undistorted medium are 

 ' really elegant and interesting creatures, yet, they seem to have been little 

 studied. There seems to be doubt even as to the number of British species • 

 gome authors making four, some three, and others again only two,* 



At the season of love the male is endowed with a serrate or sinuoua 

 dorsal ridge of skin ; stretching from the head to the end of the tg-il, In 

 T' palustris this membrane is enormously developed, giying him 9, most 

 striking appearance ; as the season comes to a close the appenda,ge is gradually 

 iabsorbed. Those who doubt the appropriateness of the word elegant, aa 

 3,pplied to these creatures, should visit some neighbouring pond and spend an 

 hour watching their motions in the water, It is more than probable that 

 any one so doing Avould come away with juster and more enlightened notions 

 of their claim to such titles as " beautiful and elegant," than any amount of 

 reading could give him. I have spent — -wasted, if you please, many hours 

 watching them in their native haunts, and I can truly affirm, that thtjre are 

 few motions more graceful than those of the newt when gliding about the 

 waters, The motions of the male as he disports himself before tjiajemale, 



* Fleming gives three but states that T, vulgaris^ is "by many considered as. iden- 

 tical with T. aquatinis." Smce writing the above I have had the pleasure of reading 

 Bell's admirable book on British reptiles, and it would seem frqm his statements that foxif- 

 (Jistiuct species have been. made, out, 



