NE WTS. 
2 95 
Crested Newt Belonging to the group in which the males are provided with 
a dorsal crest, this species (M. cristata ) differs from all the others in 
the absence of a fronto-squamosal arch to the skull; while it is further character¬ 
ised by the serration of the crest, and the orange and black-spotted coloration of 
the under-parts. The total length varies from 5 to 5f inches, and the toes of both 
limbs are free. The colour of the upper-parts is brown, blackish, or olive, with 
more or less distinct black spots; the sides are white-spotted; and the under-parts 
MALE AND FEMALE OF MARBLED NEWT (liat. size). 
orange, with black spots or marblings. During the breeding-season the head of 
the male is marbled with black and white, and there is a silvery band along the 
sides of the tail; while in the female the under surface of the tail is uniformly 
orange. The toes are yellow with black rings. An inhabitant of Britain, this 
species is spread over the greater part of Europe, extending as far north as 
Sweden, but unknown in Italy, and ranging eastwards to Greece, Turkey, and 
Russia. Not improbably Blasius’s newt (M. blasii), from North-Western France, 
is a hybrid between the present and the next species, having the form and 
coloration of the former, but the fronto-squamosal arch of the latter. 
