HEPTILIA. 
tribute this apparent weakness, in the creature to its being untowardly 
aroused from a partial torpidity, like the others, or to its presence in the 
cold spring-water being accidental. 
Sept. 23, 1846. — I saw one of these newts, in Dr. Lankester’s, London, 
take a common house-fly offered it on the point of a pen, and was told that 
it ate three of these flies daily ; unless they were alive it did not care for 
them. These animals lived for months with Dr. L.* 
March, 1846. — Again looking over my specimens of newts collected 
about Belfast, I am not satisfied about their species. They certainly do 
not agree with any of Bell’s — in fact they do not strictly come under 
either his Triton or Lissotriton. 
Their crest is continuous in the male [Lissotriton). 
They are slightly warty [Triton). 
They have a series of distant pores along each side [Triton). 
The upper lip overhangs the lower at the sides, which it is described as 
not doing in L. punctatus. 
The general appearance of my specimens is just that of L. punctatus , 
Bell, p. 1 32, but viewed critically they differ as above. 
The palmated Smooth-newt, Lissotriton palmipes, Bell. 
In 1841 I published the following note in the Annals of Natural His- 
tory, vol. vii. p. 478. 
“ Lissotriton palmipes , Bell ? Palmated smooth-newt. On questioning 
Mr. William M‘Calla, of Roundstone, Connemara, (a most intelligent col- 
lector of objects of Natural History,) respecting the species of newts ob- 
served by him, he replied — ‘I am positive of there being two species of 
Triton in this country, one of which is the T. punctatus of Jenyns’s 
Manual, and the rarer with us ; the more common species is by far 
larger and of a richer colour ; it is nearly double the size of T. punctatus ; 
the crest is far larger and is not notched ; the feet are webbed. To con- 
vince you that I have not confounded the young and adult of the same 
species, I may state that I observed them in the breeding season, and met 
with females of both species.’ A fair inference from these remarks, I 
think, is, that Lissotriton palmipes is the animal alluded to. My corre- 
spondent had not seen Mr. Bell’s work on British Reptiles.” 
Mr. M‘Calla subsequently informed me that he had not found this 
animal in Connemara, but in “ the plain district ” of Galway. 
I have not obtained any further information relative to its existence in 
Ireland. It was first distinguished, at least as British, by Mr. J. E. Gray, 
and was described in Jenyns’s Manual, in 1835. 
* A newt lived about nine years in a fern-house belonging to Dr. Ball ; it had 
no access to water, and never during that time acquired the fins necessary for 
properly assuming its aquatic functions. — Ed. 
