Frog (Rana temporaria, Linn.).

With the Common Frog, popularly classed as a Reptile, we commence acquaintance with the zoological class Batrachia, creatures that begin life at a much lower stage of development and have to pass through a fish-like larval form before attaining to any likeness to their parents. The Reptiles get through these developmental stages whilst they are still in the egg; they never have water-breathing organs. The Batrachians or Amphibians are clothed with soft skin which is not protected by armour plates or scales as seen in the Lizards and Snakes, but through which they are able to oxygenate the blood. The Frogs, Toads, and Newts constitute a class intermediate in structure and development between the Fishes and the Reptiles. Our native species represent the two orders—Ecaudata (tailless), including the Frogs and Toads; and Caudata (tailed) comprising the Newts.

Everybody knows the Frog as well as they know any of the backboned animals, and every youngster even is familiar with the main facts of its development, from the jelly masses of eggs in the pond early in spring, through the tadpole stage to the attainment of four legs and wonderful leaping powers. It is common knowledge that he has a moist, smooth skin (the supersensitive erroneously say "slimy") of yellowish ground colour overlaid with streaks and spots of brown. There is a big patch of brown behind each eye, and the long hind legs have cross-bars of the same colour. The ground tint of the Frog varies in different individuals according to the situation in which we may find them; for the pigment cells of the skin expand and contract under the influence of varying intensities of light reflected from the surroundings, causing colour changes much after the manner of those of the Chameleon, though less marked.

The Frog's forelimbs are very short compared with the hind pair, and the four moderate-sized fingers are not connected by webs; whereas, the hind limbs have their several bones lengthened, and the abnormal lengthening of those of the ankle gives the legs the appearance of having a supplementary joint. The leg is one and a half times the length of head and body. The foot has five long toes connected for half their length by a "web" of skin which constitutes a very efficient paddle when the Frog is in the water. Of these hind toes the fourth is considerably longer than the long third and fifth.

The Frog's head is as broad as it is long, the muzzle rounded, and the horizontal gape of the mouth extends back beyond the eye. The prominent eyes are perched up on the forehead, and have a fine golden iris and a horizontal pupil. The Frog differs from the Snakes and agrees with the Lizards in having eyelids; he has also, like the Birds, an additional lid—the nictitating membrane. There is a row of delicate teeth along the upper jaw, but none on the lower; there are others on the palate. The deeply notched tongue is attached by its base to the front part of the mouth, the tip far in towards the throat; in use it has to be suddenly turned over so that the tip is projected far beyond the muzzle. The large circular depression behind and below the eye is the drum of the Frog's ear.

The Frog has no neck, the base of his skull coming close to the collar-bones, and there are only a few pairs of very short apologies for ribs between the shoulders and the long pelvis which produces that steep incline at the rear of his back. He is clothed entirely with a smooth, soft skin, which is kept moist by the action of minute mucous glands distributed all over the body. A row of these glands of larger size forms a pale line running back from the eye on either side. The skin plays an important part in the oxygenation of the Frog's blood; and the experimental physiologists have shown that a Frog deprived of its lungs can carry on its respiration for a lengthened period through the skin alone. Owing to the absence of ribs he has to fill his lungs by swallowing air.

The male is less portly than the female, and he is further distinguished by having two pads on the first finger which in the breeding season become large rough cushions enabling him to hold his mate. In his throat there is a pair of vocal sacs enabling him to produce his love songs, and when these are in use their inflation causes a distension of the skin of the throat; but without these adjuncts the female manages to give answering croakings. When these duets are sung under water they produce some curious effects. When the pairing season arrives—quite early, usually about the middle of March, but sometimes in February—all the Frogs that have just come out of hibernation select their mates. Any pool of water will do, however transient, and they often make mistakes in this matter, their egg-masses being left high and dry when the waters dry up. The eggs are deposited in a mass of a thousand to two thousand at the bottom of the water, and at first they are only about a tenth of an inch in diameter, but the gelatinous covering absorbs so much water that they swell up to a third of an inch. There is a corresponding lightening of the mass, which floats to the surface and is available for observation. Each of the little jelly-spheres is seen to have a black centre—the egg proper—with a white spot on the lower side. If the spring is an average one, in about four weeks' time the black specks will have developed into brown larvÆ or tadpoles, and having escaped from the egg these will be clinging to the remains of the jelly mass by means of a pair of suckers on the underside of the head. There are at present no indications of limbs—head, body and tail, like those of a fish, merge one into another. Even the gills are not yet developed, though what we may term the buds of them are seen on the bars separating the slits behind the head on each side. These buds soon expand into gill-plumes through which the blood circulates, taking up oxygen from the water that passes between them. There is as yet no mouth, but this will soon open, and horny plates on its jaws will enable the tadpole to crop soft vegetable matter, upon which it subsists chiefly. Later on, the gill-plumes will be hidden by a flap which grows over them. The full series of stages in this development may easily be watched by keeping a few tadpoles in a glass of water with a little growing pond weed.

Ultimately, the limbs appear. Though all four develop simultaneously, the hind pair appear first, because the forelimbs are at first hidden by the flap which grew over the gills. After the disappearance of the gill-plumes, proper lungs are developed inside the body, and the animal changes from a fish-like water-breather to an air-breather, in preparation for a life on land. When all the legs are well out the form of the tadpole soon changes to that of the Frog, except that it has a long tail. You may read in some books that the tail is shed, but this is a mistake that no one could make who has watched day by day the evolution of the Frog from the tadpole. The tail is absorbed; it gets smaller daily, until finally the hind body is rounded off and there is nothing left to indicate that it once ended in a tail. Ultimately the Frog may attain a length of head and body equal to four inches.

Mr. E. S. Goodrich, F.R.S., has recently demonstrated that eggs obtained from a female Frog by dissection can be fertilised by the leucocytes or colourless corpuscles of the blood. He exhibited a fatherless Frog, so obtained, before the Linnean Society in November, 1918.

When all the tadpoles have become real little Frogs, with their legs sufficiently firm to enable them to indulge in hopping exercises, they still for a time venture no further than the very shallow water at the extreme edge of the pond, where they can walk partially submerged. Then one day there comes a heavy summer rain storm—a deluge on a small scale. Every little Frog then appears to hear the word "Go!" for with one impulse they all scramble out of the pond into the jungle of wet grass, they know not whither. If there is a road near, that is the place in which to form an idea of their prodigious numbers. The few wayfarers who may be hurrying along that road, looking for possible shelter from the pitiless rain, and seeing the Frogs hopping along much as the raindrops bounce, are quite prepared to declare that they came down from the clouds with the rain. Many persons who in the ordinary affairs of life would be regarded as reliable witnesses have testified that this is what happens. To them it seems a much more reasonable explanation of this sudden appearance—they term it a phenomenon—than the naturalist's statement that the Frogs had been waiting in the pond for the psychical moment to arrive for their dispersion—the time when the reeking herbage of many acres around would offer the safest conditions for their tender bodies to embark on the great adventure of life, their distribution over wide areas where they could carry out their proper function, the control of any inordinate increase in the insect population. For months they will crawl and hop invisibly among the lush grass and journey through the dense herbage of hedgebottoms and spinneys. Some will come under fences even into our gardens, to help us in an unequal warfare in which the gardener is always defeated by the insect, whether the bigger combatant admits it or not. Their food consists entirely of insects, slugs, and worms. In turn the Frog constitutes the food of many larger animals, including fishes, birds, snakes and weasels. The winter is spent embedded in mud at the pond-bottom, or in damp holes in the earth.

The Common Frog is distributed widely all over Britain, but is only of local occurrence in Ireland. Abroad it ranges over Central and Northern Europe as far as Sweden and Norway, and eastward to Mid-Asia.

Edible Frog (Rana esculenta, Linn.).

Although the Common Frog is the only species that is really native in Britain, another one—the Edible Frog, a Continental species—has been naturalised in the Eastern Counties of England since the early part of the nineteenth century, when Mr. Geo. Berney brought about 1500 specimens from France and Belgium and turned them loose in the Fens, in the neighbourhood of Stoke Ferry, where they are no longer plentiful, though they occur locally in various parts of Norfolk. A few years later (1843) Mr. Thurnall discovered the species in the Cambridgeshire Fens at Foulmire—a great distance (30 to 40 miles) from Stoke Ferry. Bell says his father had noted the presence of these Foulmire frogs, under the name of "Whaddon Organs," about the middle of the eighteenth century; so that it appeared that Mr. Berney had "taken coals to Newcastle"—in other words, had introduced the Edible Frog to a part of England where it already existed. In 1884 Dr. G.A. Boulenger discovered that the Foulmire frogs were of the Italian form of Rana esculenta known as the variety lessonÆ, which made it doubtful whether they could be travelled descendants of Mr. Berney's frogs. So it was suggested that they were a survival from an introduction by the Romans—who are always dragged in to help out doubtful cases.

The difference in the French and Italian forms is mainly one of colour, the type being a beautiful grass-green, whereas lessonÆ is olive-brown. But it has since transpired that lessonÆ is not restricted to Italy as Boulenger thought, for he has more recently discovered it in Belgium and near Paris, and it has been recorded from parts of the former Austrian and German Empires. Such differences as there are in the two forms are not fundamental, and the brown tint of the Foulmire examples may be due to their environment. Fresh importations from the Continent have been liberated in recent years in Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, and Bedfordshire.

The Edible Frog attains to a rather larger size than the Common Frog. It is usually without the dark patch extending from the eye to the shoulder, and the markings of the body—especially the bright yellow and black marblings of the hinder parts—are darker and bolder. There is usually a light yellow or green line running down the middle of the back from the muzzle to the hinder extremity. The most distinctive feature, however, is restricted to the male sex: at the hinder angle of the mouth, just below the ear, are external vocal sacs which, when the owner is inclined to be melodious, become distended with air to the size of large peas, giving him a very quaint appearance. The croak differs from that of the Common Frog, and has been described as "more of a loud snore, exactly like that of the Barn Owl;" but this probably refers to the vocal efforts of the female, for Bell says it is so loud and shrill as to have obtained for the frogs the names of "Cambridgeshire Nightingales" and "Whaddon Organs." The males continue to "sing" after the breeding season is past, particularly on warm moonlight nights, when they may be heard for over a mile when the choir consists of several hundred voices. The notes are "Brekeke, gwarr, ooaar, coarx."

To return to a description of the Edible Frog. Full-grown examples measure from two and a half to four inches of head and body; the females larger than the males. The head is more slender than in the Common Frog, and the brown eardrum is two-thirds of the diameter of the eye. The teeth on the palate form two oblique lines; and there is a pair of glandular folds behind the eye. The ground colour of the upper parts ranges from dull brown through olive to bright green, with dark brown or blackish spots on the back and larger patches of similar tint on the limbs. There is usually a bronzy-brown line along each side of the back, in addition to the central one already named. The back of the thigh is always spotted with black and white or yellow. Though the thigh of the Common Frog is barred or blotched, it never bears these additional spots. The coloration generally is much brighter where the vegetation is light than in dark swamps with sombre vegetation.

The developmental history of the Edible Frog from the egg to the loss of the tadpole tail follows much the same course as that of the common species, and it is not necessary to recapitulate it. The eggs are more numerous, one female producing from five to ten thousand. The tadpole condition lasts three or four months. Full-grown tadpoles are about two and a half inches long, of which more than an inch and a half is tail. The frog that has just got rid of his tail measures only half an inch. The young frogs are not such wanderers as their Common cousins, but remain in the vicinity of their birthplace, unless the pond dries up. They like to bask in the sun and wait till their food comes within range of their extensible tongues. They become mature between the fourth and fifth years.

This is the Frog whose hind legs are served as food in the restaurants of France and of the French quarters in London. We have not experimented with them as food, but remember that Frank Buckland, who was keen upon out-of-the-ordinary dishes, described them as "tasting more like the delicate flesh of the Rabbit than anything else I can think of." Our old friend, Miss Susan Hopley, told us that she once unwittingly partook of a much larger kind in the United States, and innocently remarked, "What a pity to kill such very young chickens!" She says she was moved to the remark by the insipidity of the dish.

The Edible Frog is found all over Europe and in Northern Asia.

The beautiful little Tree Frog (Hyla arborea), of bright green colour, with expanded toe-tips which make it an expert climber, is widely distributed on the Continent, whence it is frequently introduced to our conservatories. Some of these examples turned loose years ago in the Isle of Wight have become naturalised in some parts of the island, where they have become so numerous as to arouse complaints against their noisy nocturnal croaking during the breeding season.

Common Toad (Bufo vulgaris, Laurent).

Though in general terms the Toad may be said to be of similar form to the Frog, there is no need for a very minute catalogue of differences to enable the reader to discriminate between the two. So well-known are both amphibians to sight that the majority of persons know them by their correct names on a casual glance; yet we have met many who confuse them, and for this minority it is well to give some of the Toad's points.

He has a flatter back than the Frog, the bones of the pelvis not producing so sharp an angle; and the hind legs are not so long in proportion to the body, only slightly exceeding the length of head and body, whereas in the Frog they are one and a half times that length. The Toad seems more solidly built than the Frog, with broader head, shorter limbs, and in general aspect is closer to the earth, a heavier, more grovelling creature than the vaulting Frog. This earthliness is accentuated by the texture and colour of his skin. Instead of the moist and shining, bright-coloured coat of the Frog we have a dry, dull, pimply skin so strongly resembling the earth that he is frequently passed by as a lifeless clod. That is one of the Toad's strong points; and he has the patience to squat motionless for hours, tiring out any enemy that looks for movement as proof of life. He is too heavy to take a leap; instead he progresses by very short jumps on all four feet which give the impression of being accomplished only by a great effort. But he rises alertly to his full quadrupedal height when he is considering the best way to negotiate a worm.

The colour of the Toad varies a good deal according to the nature of the soil upon which he happens to live. It is usually some tint of brown or grey, but the brown may be almost red in sandpits, a rich brown or a dirty brown; the grey may be light or with an olive tinge or a sooty hue that may pass as black. As he is only active in the evenings and at night, any of these tints serve to render him inconspicuous in the general duskiness. Even his bright eyes, being coppery-red in colour, do not serve to draw attention to him.

The pimples of various size that diversify his skin are not mere ornament, though they help materially to produce the clod-resemblance. They are glands that on occasion pour out an acrid and offensive fluid that often saves the Toad when he is caught up in the jaws of some unsophisticated carnivorous beast or bird. Experience teaches such enemies to leave the Toad alone. The largest of these glands—the parotid—may be seen as an elongated, porous swelling behind the eye. The underside is whitish, the white being qualified always with an admixture of yellow, brown, or red, sometimes spotted with black.

In the matter of size: taking the head and body for length, average males measure about two and a half inches and females an inch longer. Occasionally we may meet with much larger examples, and we may safely set down such monsters as females. The male has no vocal sacs, internal or external, as in the Frogs; but both sexes can croak with several variations of tone. These sounds are emitted much more freely in the pairing season. The male develops special grasping pads on the palm and three inner fingers, at the pairing time.

After the breeding season Toads wander away from the water, and distribute their forces over field, hedgerow, wood, and gardens, wherever there is an abundance of insect life, for the quantity of food each Toad consumes is enormous. It includes beetles, caterpillars, flies, snails, worms, woodlice, and small mice. If the droppings of a Toad be examined, they will be found to consist very largely of the indigestible parts of beetles. The Toad spends the hotter part of the day concealed under the lower foliage of plants, and as many nocturnal insects seek similar situations in the daytime, he has no difficulty in enjoying a continual feast. His appetite appears to be always keen, no matter how well he has fed. Some years ago, when we were pointing to a portly female in her favourite daytime "form" in the garden, a friend expressed the opinion that she was overfed, and we remarked that you cannot overfeed a Toad. Our friend was sceptical, and undertook to provide more food than she could eat. There followed a hunt for the fattest caterpillars and the longest worms, and the Toad accepted them as readily as though she were breaking a fast. The caterpillar hunter grew tired of the business whilst the Toad was still quite fresh, and he admitted that with so elastic an integument there was no knowing what was the limit of a Toad's feeding capacity.

The Toad has the homing faculty well developed. By the judicious wriggling of his hind quarters he scoops out a hollow in the soil, preferably under a root or stone, so that he can lie without being conspicuous. In the evening he sets out hunting, and may travel some distance; but before morning he is back snugly in his form, where he may be found during the day for many months. A similar sense of locality—"orientation" the naturalists call it—is manifested in the choice of ponds for breeding. Any chance pool, however temporary in character, will serve the Frog, but the Toad is more particular and has special requirements for a nursery. Any one who has observed our batrachians during a series of years must have noticed that scores of Toads may be seen in early spring, all converging upon a particular pond, perhaps passing some other piece of water that looks quite suitable for their purpose. In a garden where we kept a portion wild as cover for many of the smaller animals, we had a considerable number of Frogs and Toads that had come there voluntarily. A small pond was freely visited by them, together with Newts, an occasional snake and stray aquatic birds. The Frogs and Newts bred there every year; the Toads never. In a field two or three hundred yards beyond our boundary was a large deep pond that had formerly been a brickmaker's pit, but the suitable earth being exhausted it had been allowed to fill with water. To this pond Toads came in the spring from all quarters. On a mild moist evening when the great impulse took possession of the Toads, we used to see scores of them hopping across a well-used road that divided the grasslands, and next morning would see the lifeless bodies of many that had been flattened out by motor-wheels in the dark. On the further side of the pond the continuity of the grassland was again broken by a railway line, and here you would see them hopping across the track and climbing over the rails, many, of course, meeting fate in the adventure.

In our present neighbourhood there is a large pond fed by springs from the plateau gravels of an extensive common. In the days of our boyhood there was open grassland and copse between the common and the pond with only an ordinary hedge to mark that it was private land. At the present time the pond forms a fine piece of ornamental water in a private garden, and on all sides residental roads surround it. Yet this pond must have been a Toads' breeding place in the old days, for in the spring we find Toads on the tarred sidewalks of the roads seeking for gaps in the fence through which they may reach the desired trysting place; and we have sometimes put them in the way of finding it. It is very probable that in such cases the Toads are making their way back to the identical pond in which they first saw the light—a corollary to the case of the migrant birds that find their way back to build their nests in the copse or hedgerow where they were hatched.

The small, black eggs of the Toad differ from those of the Frogs in the fact that they form a double row embedded in a gelatinous string ten to fifteen feet in length. Like those of the Frog the eggs by imbibing water swell to three times their original size. The strings are wound about the stems of water-weeds by the movements of their parents, and the little black larvÆ are hatched out in about a fortnight. For the first few days they cling to the egg-strings, then hang tails downwards from the under sides of leaves. They go through similar stages to those of the Frog tadpole, and become small tailless Toads, a little more than half an inch long, in eleven or twelve weeks. It is five years before they reach maturity; but the full period of life is not known. In old age they frequently succumb to the attacks of flesh-eating flies whose eggs are deposited on the back of the Toad, and the small maggots entering by eye or nostril devour the brain and eyes.

The Common Toad is found all over England, Wales, and Scotland; but Ireland appears never to have had it, in spite of the legend that St. Patrick banished it with the Snakes. It occurs all over Europe, through Siberia, the Amoor, and the Himalayas to China; also on the further side of the Mediterranean, in Morocco, and Algeria.

Natterjack (Bufo calamita, Laurent).

Although in general appearance the Natterjack may be said to resemble the Common Toad, a close inspection reveals differences that at once distinguish it as a separate species. It is smaller than the common species and its legs are not only actually but also proportionately shorter. But the narrow yellow line that runs along the centre of the head and back is the most distinctive mark, and has suggested one of its local names—Golden-back. Running Toad is the name by which it is known in the Fens, and this is a good descriptive name, for owing to the shortness of the hind limbs the Natterjack does not hop. It runs for a short distance, then stops for a little, and runs on again.

The maximum length of head and body is three inches, and there is no marked difference in size between the sexes; but the male develops nuptial pads on his first three fingers, and he has a large internal vocal sac whose use causes a great bulging of his bluish throat. The skin, though warty, is smooth; its ground colour is pale yellowish-brown tending to olive, with clouding and distant spots of a darker brown or greenish hue. The underside is yellowish-white with black spots, and the legs are barred with black. The prominent eyes are greenish-yellow, and the long porous gland (parotid) behind the eye is smaller than in the Common Toad.

The Natterjack breeds later than the common species, the pairing not beginning before the end of April and being spread over May and June. Like the Frog, it is careless regarding the permanent nature of its spawning place. The locality chosen is advertised by the rattling noise of the males, a loud trilling croak continued for a few seconds at a time, and of sufficient power to be heard a mile away. The egg-strings are short as compared with those of the Common Toad, being only five or six feet in length. The blackish tadpoles are only an inch long when fully grown; but they get through their development into tailless Toads in less than six weeks, and are then less than half an inch long. In another year they only measure three-quarters of an inch; and when they become mature between the fourth and fifth years they are only between an inch and a half and two inches long.

The Natterjack feeds on insects and worms, and though its activities are mainly nocturnal, it may be seen running about in full sunshine. When molested it spreads itself out flat on the ground and pretends to be dead. The secretion from its glands when annoyed is said to smell "of gunpowder or india-rubber."

It is plentiful in some English localities, but it appears to be somewhat migratory, many places whence it may have been recorded last year failing to yield a specimen to the careful searcher this year. Sir Joseph Banks first called attention to it as a British species in the account published in Pennant's "British Zoology" (1776). Part of his note is worth quoting: "This species frequents dry and sandy places: it is found on Putney Common, and also near Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, where it is called the Natter Jack. It never leaps, neither does it crawl with the slow pace of a Toad, but its motion is liker to running. Several are found commonly together, and, like others of the genus, they appear in the evenings."

In Scotland it is much more rare than in England; but in certain parts of Ireland, as around Castlemaine and Valentia Harbours in Co. Kerry, it is plentiful and known by the name of Natchet, which is probably an Irish corruption of Natterjack. In his bright and entertaining "Seventy Years of Irish Life," Mr. W. R. Le Fanu gives a native explanation of their continued presence in Kerry, in spite of St. Patrick's activities: "Notwithstanding all this, there still exists a species of Toad (the Natchet, I think) in the barony of Iveragh, in the west of Kerry. I was fishing in the Carah river the first time I saw them. I said to two countrymen, who were standing by, 'How was it that these Toads escaped Saint Patrick?' 'Well, now, yer honour,' said one of them, 'it's what I'm tould that when Saint Patrick was down in these parts he went up the Reeks, and when he seen what a wild and dissolute place Iveragh was, he wouldn't go any further; and that's the rason them things does be here still.' 'Well now, yer honour,' said the other fellow, 'I wouldn't altogether give into that, for av coorse the saint was, many's the time, in worse places than Iveragh. It's what I hear, yer honour, that it was a lady that sent them from England in a letter fifty or sixty years ago.'"

The Natterjack is found on the Continent from Denmark and Sweden to Gibraltar.

As we have naturalised representatives of the Continental Frogs here, so we have an isolated colony of the European Midwife Toad (Alytes obstetricans), established many years ago in what was then a nurseryman's garden at Bedford. The circumstances attending its introduction are not known, but the colony still exists. The female lays from twenty to fifty bright yellow eggs connected in a long string, which the male entangles around his thighs and retires with them to his hole until the embryos have reached the tadpole stage—a period of about six weeks. At the proper time he seeks the water, when the tadpoles escape from the eggs, and complete their development much after the manner of Common Toad tadpoles.

Crested Newt (Molge cristata, Laurent).

The Newts, of which there are three British species, though agreeing generally with the Frogs and Toads in their passage through an aquatic, tadpole stage before attaining their mature form, differ in the fact that they retain through life the compressed tail. In consequence they constitute, with the Salamanders, the order Caudata or Tailed Batrachians. As the structure, development and habits of the three are much alike their story may be told here in general terms, before proceeding to a description of the species separately.

The entire animal is enclosed in a soft skin which develops mucuous and sensory apparatus, arranged principally along the sides and the base of the tail. The two pairs of legs are almost of the same length, the hinder pair being slightly the longer. The hands have four fingers and the feet five toes as in the other batrachians. In general form they are like Lizards, and LinnÆus classified them as such and was followed by the naturalists of the earlier part of the nineteenth century. During the breeding season the skin of the males develops into a high crest or fin along the middle of the back. There is a similar development above and below the tail. These developments have a triple importance: they are sexual adornments, swimming aids and sensory organs. Usually terrestrial animals, the adults are impelled to seek the water at the pairing season, and in many cases travel long distances in order to reach the stagnant pools that are mostly favoured. There are minute teeth along the jaws and on the palate; but they serve only to retain their living food.

The skin serves the same office of respiration as we mentioned in the case of the Frog, and like it they are compelled when on land to force air into their lungs by a constant pumping and swallowing action of the mouth and throat.

The male seeks to excite the female by displaying his beautiful crest and his heightened colours; also by rubbing her with his head and lashing her with his tail. Then he emits spermatophores in the form of a mushroom-shaped gelatinous mass whose head consists largely of sperms. These sink to the bottom, whence the female takes them into her body. The eggs are, in consequence, already fertilised when deposited. They are laid singly against a long leaf of one of the pond-weeds—Anacharis, Callitriche, Water-moss, etc.—which is folded over by the female and adheres to the egg. They hatch in about a fortnight, the liberated larvÆ being more slender and fish-like than the tadpoles of the Frog. They have three pairs of external gills, and soon after hatching they develop two pairs of thread-like organs from the sides of the upper jaw, which enable them to cling to water plants. The process of development is more prolonged than in the Frogs and Toads, but it is mostly complete at the end of summer before the hibernation begins. The little Newts then crawl out of the water and seek shelter under stones in the immediate neighbourhood of the pond.

The Crested Newt, Warty Newt or Great Newt, is our largest species, attaining a maximum length of six inches, to which the tail contributes two inches and a half. The skin in this species is thrown into little warts, and on the upper parts is dark grey or blackish-brown. Along the lower part of the sides there is a liberal sprinkling of white dots, and the underside is coloured yellow or orange, boldly spotted or blotched with black. There is a strong collar-like fold at the base of the throat. The male's nuptial crest starts from the head as a low frill, but between the shoulders and the thighs becomes high with its edge deeply notched, the resulting "teeth" waving freely in the water. Behind the thighs there is a gap, and then the crest rises again as a tail fin, the lower edge of the tail having a similar extension. Along the sides of the tail proper runs a bluish-white, silvery-looking stripe. The eye has a golden yellow iris.

The female, who exceeds the male in size, is coloured similarly, but the lower edge of her tail is yellow or orange. Above the spine runs a depressed line, which is coloured yellow in the breeding season, which begins in April. The newly hatched, semi-transparent larvÆ are yellowish-green with two black stripes along the back, which, later, when the ground colour changes to a light olive, become broken up into spots, and the flanks and underside become tinged with gold. They have a finer equipment of branchial plumes than the Frog tadpoles, and their form is more graceful and not "big headed." Some individuals do not complete their development before winter, and remain in the pond until the spring. They may be frozen in solid ice, but they thaw out none the worse for their cold storage. Their food consists of any small aquatic life such as insects, worms, crustaceans, and weaker individuals of their own kind; later, on land they feed upon worms and insects. The adults, if they did not leave the water immediately after the conclusion of family affairs, seek dry land in the autumn, and assemble in numbers in some comfortable damp hole, where they twist and intertwine into a ball, apparently to prevent loss of moisture. In this way they pass the winter in a more or less torpid condition.

The skin is shed much after the manner of the Snake, separation beginning at the lips, and by the help of the hands and bodily wrigglings worked off the tail. These sloughs may be found floating entire in the water looking like Newt-ghosts; but on land they may be got rid of piecemeal, the old skin being sometimes swallowed as in the case of the Toad.

The Crested Newt is widely distributed over England, but is less plentiful in the west: in Devon it is a scarce species and locally restricted, and in Cornwall it does not occur. Much the same applies to Scotland, where it is found as far north as Perthshire, but not at all in the west. It is absent entirely from Ireland; but generally distributed on the Continent.

Smooth Newt (Molge vulgaris, Linn.).

The Smooth Newt, Common Newt, Spotted Newt, Eft or Evat is the best known of the trio, but is most plentiful in the eastern half of the Kingdom. It is very much smaller than the Crested Newt, its maximum length being four inches. It varies in colour, but the prevailing tint is olive-brown with darker spots over the upper side, and dark streaks on the head. The underside is orange or vermilion with round black spots, the colours becoming more intense in the breeding season; the throat white or yellow, mostly dotted with black. The underside of the female is, as a rule, much paler than that of the male, and often unspotted. At the mating period the male develops a continuous crest, running from the top of the head to the end of the tail, and the lower edge of the tail has a spotted pale blue band with black base. The upper edge of the crest is festooned instead of being serrated. The eye has a golden iris. The female has shorter fingers and toes than the male.

The breeding history of the Smooth Newt follows much on the same lines as that of the Crested Newt. The larva is spotted with yellow along the sides and tail, which ends in a thread-like prolongation of its tip.

Immediately after the breeding season the adults leave the water, and seek their food among the vegetation of the land. They become duller in colour, and the skin becomes more opaque with a fine velvety surface. They are then the Dry Evats of country folk. When aquarium-keeping was a fashionable drawing-room hobby in mid-Victorian days the Smooth Newt was an annoying pet, owing to its objection to remaining in the water after the breeding season had passed, and being so frequently found in a dry and shrivelled condition in obscure corners of the room.

In parts of Ireland it is the Man-eater or Man-keeper (as well as Dry Ask and Dark Lewker) owing to a superstitious belief that it enters the mouths of sleepers, and thereafter robs them of all nutriment of which they may partake.

Palmate Newt (Molge palmata, Dum. and Bibr.).

In general appearance the Palmate Newt is similar to the Smooth Newt, and is as smooth as that species. There is no doubt that it is commonly mistaken, for it, for a few years ago it was considered rare, but closer examination shows that whilst it is local in the south-east of England, it is more plentiful than the Smooth Newt in the west.

It is a smaller animal than the Smooth Newt, its length being three inches only. In the breeding season its distinctness is evident, for the male has then a nearly four-sided body owing to the development of a fold of skin along each side of the back. The crest, instead of being high in front and having an undulating edge, rises gradually from the head, is of less height and has an entire margin. The tail appears as though the tip had been cut off and the attempt to renew it had got only as far as the development of a short thread from the centre of the cut portion. But what gives the species its name is a black web which connects the toes. The tail develops a fin along its lower edge in both sexes, and this in the male is edged with blue and in the female with orange. Another point of distinction lies in the colour of the throat. Instead of the black-dotted white or yellow of the Smooth Newt, the throat of the Palmate Newt is flesh-coloured without dots.

Above, the colour is olive-brown with darker spots; below, the centre is orange bordered by pale yellow, with or without black spots.

After the breeding season, when the adults leave the water, the webbing of the feet—being no longer useful—becomes reduced to a margin along each toe and no longer constituting a palm; but the truncated tail remains as a specific distinction, though the thread-like prolongation becomes very short in the female.