PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
77 
considered generally as the true mode of seeking and using food, as their wild state 
influenced them. They more commonly adapted their habits to the use of the ar¬ 
tificial food supplied to them. 
Mr. Andrews said that, in the instance of a merganser, whose strong serration of 
the mandibles in the wild state enabled it to retain the fish it captured, the serrated 
character of the bill became blunt, and, to some degree, obliterated, by its change 
of food in confinement. 
Mr. Kinahan observed, that the paper possessed particular interest in the remarks 
concerning the breeding of the Manx shearwater and Bulwer’s petrel in this country. 
Mere stragglers have no right to be regarded as natives, though their oc¬ 
currence should always be noted. He had no doubt that observation would add 
some birds to the list of those which breed in this country, at least occasionally. 
He might remark, that he believed the siskin was amongst the number, having met 
them in various years, in the summer, in Rathgar and Donny brook, in the County 
Dublin, and in Tipperary, and in Powerscourt woods as late as the 22nd of July. 
He had also little doubt that the redwing sometimes bred here, and it was also 
believed that the black-cap warbler did so too. 
Mr. Kinahan then read his paper 
ON THE REPRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE SMOOTH NEWT, AND A NOTICE 
OF THE POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO IT. 
Some years ago my attention was directed to these interesting animals, chiefly 
with reference to the number of species found in and about Dublin. I was then 
so fortunate as to have an opportunity of watching the progress of some of the earlier 
stages of development of our only Dublin species, the smooth newt, (L. punctatus— 
Bell. Within the last few months my attention was again called to them, by a very 
interesting and valuable paper, by J. Higginbottom, of Nottingham, in the annals 
for December, 1853. In this paper, which is stated to be the result of five years’ 
close study, the author enters very fully into the habits and distinctions of the 
different species, corroborating, for the most part, the previous researches of Rus- 
eoni, in his u Amours des Salamandres,” and of Professor Bell, in his excellent 
treatise on British reptiles, and also adding much to our knowledge by researches 
into what he calls their terrestrial stage. On reading this paper, I was struck with 
several discrepancies between Mr. Higginbottom’s and my own observations. 
Whether this arose from his observations having been made solely on the warty 
newt (on which point there is some ambiguity in his paper), and mine on the smooth 
newt, or from some accidental cause, leaving others to decide, I shall content 
myself with detailing what I saw, and pointing out the discrepancies between the 
conclusions arrived at by Mr. Higginbottom and the results of my experiments. 
On the 11th May, 1851, I placed two smooth newts (L. punctatus—Bell), one a 
female, captured in the Bishop’s Fields, on the preceding day, the other a male, 
taken some ten days previous, in a glass jar, four inches in diameter, and about 
eighteen inches high ; this was filled with water within a few inches of its summit, 
and had floating in it a plant of the Indian pond-weed (Pistia stratiotes). On the 
15th I found that the female had deposited half-a-dozen eggs ; these were small and 
made up of a round, white body, about the size of a grain of white mustard-seed 
(which it much resembled), floating inside of a pellucid, opal-coloured sac. During 
the two following days she deposited about a dozen more; they were arranged in 
strings of four to six, adhering in rows, and intertwined among the long, floating 
roots, and also through the axils of the leaves, but in no instance could I find them de¬ 
posited singly in the folded edges of the leaves as Bell states, and Mr. Higginbottom 
asserts, is necessary for their preservation. Bell, indeed, states that they are some¬ 
times placed in the axils of the leaves. The female, when depositing the ovum, wound 
her tail round the roots of the plant, as if to anchor herself. 01 the ova produced 
I distributed among my friends all but two; these I placed in a small bottle of 
water, in a window facing the south-west, in a room of the temperature of from 
60 to 70 degs. Fahrenheit. They were soon hatched; the one on the 3rd of June, 
the other on the 5th. This appears to contradict Mr. Higginbottom’s statement, 
that the ova must be folded up in a leaf, and thus protected from the free 
