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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.