152 
THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
place ; and yet it is not at all rare to see two or more separate 
colonies in quite small ponds. At Birch Hall, the toads, while 
preferring the big reed beds, threaded their egg masses in all 
parts of the lake near the banks. 
At Theydon Bois the exodus of the young frogs took place 
in June, when it never seemed to me a very striking phenomenon, 
and young toads are seen on land at the same time ,* but, after 
the first heavy shower about mid-July (the 20th in 1915 and 1918, 
I note) young toads no bigger than bluebottles swarm every¬ 
where in astonishing numbers. At such times the people can 
hardly be convinced that the little animals have not been rained 
down from the sky. In a few days these swarming hordes have 
disappeared. 
6.—NEWTS. 
It is difficult to understand how so many observations on Essex 
newts escaped my note book. For example, I cannot find any 
mention of the palmated newt, 1 which is certainly common 
in some areas at least. Near Theydon, in winter, I used to 
find both the great warty and the smooth newts hibernating 
either under damp logs or deep in ponds. In captivity, smooth 
newts may live for many months, right through the winter, 
without being seen anywhere except deep in the w 7 ater of the 
tank. A Forest common newt with a double tail lived with me 
for nearly a year ; and a great warty newt from the same local¬ 
ity had, I noticed, the second toe duplicated on the left hind foot. 
THE BRITISH YELLOW WAGTAILS. 
By GULIELMA LISTER, F.L S. 
O UR common yellow wagtail is a regular summer visitor 
to the British Isles, and is distributed over the greater 
part of England from April to early September. In Essex it 
nests abundantly in low meadows and marsh land near the 
coast. Outside England it is comparatively rare, and appears 
to breed in small numbers only in w r est Holland, west France, 
and, perhaps, in Portugal, migrating in winter through the west 
of Europe to west Africa. It was first described by Willoughby 
and Ray in their “ Ornithologia,” published in 1676, where, 
iThe Palmated Newt used to occur (and possibly still occurs) in a pond in the Forest at High 
Beach, Ed. 
