LEVERIAN WATER-NEWT. 303 



dered as constituting merely one of the same spe- 

 cies ; but this can surely be accounted for on no 

 other supposition than the want of an opportunity 

 of contemplating the animals in their living state. 

 Among those who have thus conjoined, or rather 

 confounded them, must be numbered the Count 

 de Cepede, whose negligence in this respect affords 

 a curious contrast to the opposite extreme of Mr. 

 Latreille and Mr. Schneider. 



LEVERIAN WATER-NEWT. 



In the Leverian Museum is a specimen of an 

 extremely large water-newt, supposed to be a 

 non-descript species. Its total length is seventeen 

 inches and a half, of which the tail measures six 

 inches and a half, from the setting on of the 

 thighs, but if measured from the commencement 

 of the upper membranaceous edge, only four 

 inches and three quarters. The head is flattened 

 and shaped somewhat like that of a burbot ; the 

 mouth moderately wide ; the upper jaw furnished 

 in front with two concentric rows of very nume- 

 rous, small, setaceous teeth; the rows being set 

 about the eighth of an inch apart: in the under 

 jaw is a single row only : the eyes are small, round, 

 and situated on each side the front of the head, 



quaestio ! CI. Du Fay in Act. Gall, ostendit generare oviparam ; 

 ostendit praeterea, & pinxit metamorphoses, &c. Legat Limiaeus^ 

 et cessabit tandem interrogare/' 



