73 
»nd rather variable as to colour below. Sometimes it is creamy- 
white and often yellow, closely or sparsely dotted with small brown 
dots. 
Palmate Newt. — This species is much less abundant than 
either of the other two, and is very locally distributed. It may be 
readily distinguished for during the breeding season the hind feet 
of the male are strongly webbed. Instead of tapering to a point as 
in other newts, the flesh of the tail ends abruptly, but the bone 
seems to continue as a fine black filament for an eighth of an inch or 
more. The crest is quite straight, the dorsal parts are greenish, 
regularly marked with bluish spots, and the under surface is creamy- 
white with a faint streak of yellow running throughout its length. 
The female is very difficult to recognise for it is so much like a 
small Smooth Newt that even a tutored eye has often oifficulty in 
discriminating between them. 
All the Hritish Newts are carnivorous, feeding on tadpoles, water 
insects, and the soft-bodied creatures of all kinds which they en- 
counter on their wanderings. These batrachians are especially 
suited to confinement in well-arranged aquaria; there small worms 
and tadpoles will form their staple diet. 
The Five-legged Newt.— Certain low forms of life, as crabs, 
lobsters, lizards, newts, and many others have the power in a greater 
or less degtee of reproducing a lost limb. Rvcryone has seen an 
ordinary crab with one of its pincers much smaller than the other. 
The shorter limb is, in the majority of cases, a reproduced member, 
the original one having been torn off during a combat or lost in one 
of a variety of other ways. It often happens that a newt has the 
misfortune to have part of its tail appropriated by a leech or perhaps 
its leg crudely amputated by a voracious fish. In either case there 
would be an attempt to replace the lost member. In our illustration 
the newt has five limbs, the fifth being a partly developed extra right 
fore leg. Possibly the creature’s shoulder was, at one time, badly 
injured and from the wound there slowly grew another leg. No 
doubt the animal's constitution having felt sufficient shock to 
imagine, as it were, that the original leg had gone, and had therefore 
grown another to replace it. This is fairly common with lizards. 
When one of these reptiles naturally breaks off its tail, another 
gradually grows. If. however, the tail is only injured, perhaps half 
way up its length, often another slowly makes its appearance at the 
wound. This continues growing till finally the lizard’s tail is strongly 
forked. 
The fifth leg of the newt in question was quite useless to its owner, 
being without any trace of an elbow, and was also quite incapable of 
independent motion. 
Common Frog. —With the first fine days of spring frogs begin 
to leave their winter quarters and assemble in the ponds. There the 
eggs are deposited in mas-es of some hundreds together on the 
shallows at the edges. When first laid each mass of spawn looks 
very small and dark, for then it only consists of the black yolks, 
which are very sticky and adhere closely to one another. This 
adhesive substance, in which each egg is enveloped, rapidly absorbs 
water, and becomes distended to a gelatinous sphere with the black 
yolk in its centre. Of course the outermost eggs of the masses s»ell 
first, the water taking some time to penetrate to those within. Our 
first photograph of the series shows this stage where the outer eggs 
are swelling. The next illustration depicts the mass still swelling, 
while the third shows the spawn fully distended. The value of the 
gelatinous covering will be at once realised by any one who attempts 
to pick up one of these masses, its slippery nature making the task 
