Newt

“ The new jaw, or leg, is a newt's, and never by any accident more like that of a frog. What is true of the newt is true of every animal and of every plant; the acorn tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant such as that from whose twig it fell; the spore of the humblest lichen reproduces the green or brown incrustation which gave it birth; and at the other end of the scale of life, the child that resembled neither the paternal nor the maternal side of the house would be regarded as a kind of monster. ”

“ It is not generally known that the newt, although one of the smallest of our North American animals, has an extremely happy home-life. It is just one of those facts which never get bruited about.
I first became interested in the social phenomena of newt life early in the spring of 1913, shortly after I had finished my researches in sexual differentiation among amœba. ”

“ In the newt, as would be anticipated, the elementary parts of the tissues are formed altogether upon a much larger scale than, in the other animals, and there are individual differences which are most interesting. The disciples of evolution might gain some facts in support of their theory by comparing in minute structure the tissues of the newt and proteus, in which latter animal everything is on a larger and coarser (?) scale than in the newt. But would the evolutional hypothesis gain by the application of such a test? ”

“ And now that we have seen how wonderfully Nature works in the fulfilment of her laws, even among her tiniest creatures, let us study for a minute a cross-section of the community-life of the newt. It is a life full of all kinds of exciting adventure, from weaving nests to crawling about in the sun and catching insect larvæ and crustaceans. ”

“ The male newt is distinguished by a beautiful crimson tipped wavy crest of loose skin, that extends along the whole course of the back and tail, and which, together with the rich orange-colored belly, makes it a most beautiful creature. The female has a singular habit of laying her eggs upon long leaves of water-plants, and actually tying them in the leaf by a regular knot. ”

“ They do not fasten them together in great batches, like the frog, or in long, narrow strings, like the toad. They lay them one by one. And the mother newt takes each egg as she lays it, places it in the middle of the narrow leaf of some water-plant, and then twists the leaf neatly round it with her little fore feet, so as to wrap it up in a kind of parcel! ”

“ The newt's day is practically never done, largely because the insect larvæ multiply three million times as fast as the newt can possibly catch and eat them. And it takes the closest kind of community team-work in the newt colony to get things anywhere near cleaned up by nightfall.
It is early morning, and the workers are just appearing, hurrying to the old log which is to be the scene of their labors. What a scampering! What a bustle! Ah, little scamperers! Ah, little bustlers! How lucky you are, and how wise! You work long hours, without pay, for the sheer love of working. ”

“ Newt, nūt, n. a genus of amphibious animals like small lizards. [Formed with initial n, borrowed from the article an, from ewt—A.S. efeta.]
Newtonian, nū-tō′ni-an, adj. relating to, formed, or discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, the celebrated philosopher (1642-1727) —also Newton′ic.—Newtonian telescope, a form of reflecting telescope. ”

“ Their history will be dealt with in treating of the general fate of the hypoblast.
Urodela. The early stages of the development of the Newt have been adequately investigated by Scott and Osborn (No. 114) . The segmentation and formation of the layers is in the main the same as in the Frog. The ovum is without black pigment. There is a typical unsymmetrical invagination, but the dorsal lip of the blastopore is somewhat thickened. The most striking feature in which the Newt differs from the Frog is the fact that the epiblast is at first constituted of a single layer of cells (fig. 75, ep) . ”

“ The salamander, like the toad, the slow-worm, or the water newt, is still held to be decidedly uncanny. In our younger days our seeking after such small objects of natural history was always held by wondering rustics as a foolish tempting of Providence, and we have repeatedly been told the most moving stories of the poisonous nature of all such creatures, and especially how newts developed the most alarming properties if interfered with, biting out pieces of the captor’s flesh, and then spitting fire into the wound. ”

“ I have seen a male, in the stress of his handicap courtship, stand on his fore-feet, gesticulating in amorous fashion with his hind feet in the air. Franz Ingehalt, in his "Über Weltschmerz des Newt," recounts having observed a distinct and deliberate undulation of the body, beginning with the shoulders and ending at the filament of the tail, which might well have been the origin of what is known to-day in scientific circles as "the shimmy." The object seems to be the same, except that in the case of the newt, it is the male who is the active agent. ”

“ Triton waltli. Spanish Newt, adult and larvae. × 2⁄3.
Large females reach a length of 10 inches. The larvae metamorphose, as a rule, when they are between 2 and 3 inches long, but those which have been bred in tanks often reach double this length. These newts are frequent inhabitants of the rain-water cisterns common in the South of Portugal and Spain, into which they tumble without ever being able to get out again. ”

“ When ascending, his motion is so undulatory that he may easily be mistaken for a smooth newt, going up for a bubble. Nor is our interest in him lessened by his displays of individuality of character. He is a savage on a small scale. ”

“ A fiercely baleful wrath shot instinctively through Newt's gray hawk-like eyes and smoldered in their deep sockets, but there still was need to leash his anger—and conceal his purpose.
"I'm obleeged ter ye," he answered in a dead voice of mock humility, though his tongue ached to burst into profane denunciation, "but I hain't axed nobody ter do nothin'. I didn't 'low ter be beholden ter nobody."
"You are 'beholden' to everybody who has befriended you," retorted the warden with rising asperity. "Do you mean to go back to the mountains?" ”

“ The leaves of persicaria, also, are often selected by the female newt for the purpose of depositing her eggs. Here you see is a leaf folded up; between the folds is another newt's egg. I have never seen the newt in the act of laying her eggs, but, I believe, it may readily be observed by placing a female newt any time during the months of May and June in a vessel of water with some leaves of persicaria. Mr. Bell says, "The manner in [Pg 99] which the eggs are deposited is very interesting and curious. ”

“ Day in and day out, the busy army of newts go on making the world a better place in which to live. They have their little trials and tragedies, it is true, but they also have their fun, as any one can tell by looking at a logful of sleeping newts on a hot summer day. ”

“ Turtles and newts are in busy motion when the spring-birds are only just arriving. Those gelatinous masses in yonder wayside-pond are the spawn of water-newts or tritons: in the clear transparent jelly are imbedded, at regular intervals, little blackish dots; these elongate rapidly, and show symptoms of head and tail curled up in a spherical cell; the jelly is gradually absorbed for their nourishment, until on some fine morning each elongated dot gives one vigorous wriggle, and claims thenceforward all the privileges attendant on this dissolution of the union. ”

“ Put him in the fairest garden, and presently he will approach you with a newt, a toad, or a huge snail in his custody. Nothing would ever induce him to hurt them, but he gives them what he imagines to be a little treat and then restores them to their homes. ”

“ This structure no doubt aids the male in his eager search and pursuit of the female. Whilst courting her he rapidly vibrates the end of his tail. With our common newts (Triton puncatus and crisatus) a deep, much indented crest is developed along the back and tail of the male during the breeding-season, which disappears during the winter. ”

“ A remarkable feature of the newts, which they share with the other tailed Batrachians and the larvae of the frogs and toads, is the great facility with which they regenerate, lost parts, such as the tail, limbs, and even the eye, a faculty which has given rise to a great variety of experiments, from the days of Charles Bonnet and Spallanzani to those of the present school of Entwickelungsmechanik. ”

“ It is astonishing to see a little Triton getting hold of and gradually swallowing a wriggling earthworm almost as thick and as long as itself. When two newts seize the same worm, as these voracious and jealous creatures often do, each gets hold of one end, and swallowing as much as it can, twists and rolls round in a direction opposite to that of its rival, until the worm breaks, or until the jaws of the two newts meet and the stronger of the two draws it out of the weaker one and swallows the whole worm. They do not drink, but soak themselves in the water. ”

“ He wished that Newton wanted a book, or even two or three, or magazines with gaily coloured pictures, or anything that older or younger boys would have liked a little. But Newton was at that age which comes sooner or later to every healthy boy, and the sight of a book which he was meant to read and ought to read was infinitely worse than the ugliest old toad that ever flops out of a hollow tree at dusk, spitting poison and blinking his devilish little eyes at you when you come too near him. ”

“ He makes love gallantly— fighting his rivals like the noble little water dragon that he is.
Newts are not any more easy to keep at home in a bowl than little frogs. They grow up from eggs, just like tadpoles, only instead of losing their tails and changing into frogs they keep their tails to swim with, and remain newts. They are not easy to keep because they are very clever at climbing. Once we did catch two of the brown lady newts, and the Imp fell splosh into the duckweed just as he was reaching out trying to catch a he. ”

“ During the life on land they shrink and withdraw from the surface, and their nerves likewise diminish, but in the breeding season, when the newts take again to aquatic life, they revive, are rebuilt and become prominent on the surface. They are an inheritance from the fishes, in which such lateral line organs are universally present. ”

“ Length, three-and-one-half inches; greenish or reddish-brown; light-yellow underneath; row of red dots on sides, and small black dots on belly; tail, flat. Aquatic.
2. Red Newt. Diemyctylus miniatus.
Length, three-and-one-half inches: similar to above, but bright red. Under stones on land.
3. Spring Newt. Desmognathus fusca.
Length, four inches: blackish-brown, with gray spots; marbled underneath. Common in springs: very lively. ”

“ The fourth category is represented by the Apoda or Caecilians in which, as we have stated above, the male is provided with an intromittent organ. Some of these batrachians are viviparous.
In those species in which the embrace is of long duration the limbs of the male, usually the fore limbs (pleurodele newt, Ecaudata) , rarely the hind limbs (a few American and European newts) , according to the mode of amplexation, acquire a greater development, and are often armed with temporary horny excrescences which drop off after the pairing season. ”

“ He asserts, however, in another book on the subject of animals ill-disposed towards mankind, that the skins of newts—which like other reptiles they shed at fixed intervals for the renewal of their youth—form a remedy for fits. ”

“ Some ancestors of theirs—primæval newts or salamanders—must have gone on for countless centuries improving themselves in their adult shape from age to age, yet bringing all their young into the world from the egg, as mere mud-fish still, in much the same state as their unimproved forefathers had done millions of æons before. ”

“ The tail-fins are much enlarged; in the males of some species a high cutaneous fold grows out on the back, devoid of muscles, but rich in sense-organs. The whole skin, instead of being dry, possesses numerous mucous glands and, what is of more importance, specialised sensory apparatuses which are arranged chiefly along the lateral lines of the body and part of the tail.
After the breeding season Newts become terrestrial, hiding in cracks, trees, or in the sandy soil. Some species aestivate during the hot and dry season. They hibernate either in the ground, or occasionally in ponds. ”

“ About the beginning of July many of the young Newts, having completed their metamorphosis, leave the water, and remain on land. And not long afterwards, the adults follow their example, and creep about the herbage of the banks, or resort to damp hollows, cellars in the neighbourhood of rivers, and similar humid retreats. The fine crest of the male begins to be absorbed, and his brilliant lines disappear ”

“ Edmund Newton swore that he had been afflicted with various sicknesses, and had been banged in the face with dirty cloths, because he had undersold Marie Smith in Dutch cheeses. She also sent to him a person clothed in russet, with a little bush beard and a cloven foot, together with her imps, a toad, and a crab. ”

“ Full-grown newts do not frequent the water excepting for the sake of laying their eggs. The young ones are ready for leaving the water in the autumn, but I have often obtained young newts with their gills fully developed in the depth of winter. Probably these had been hatched late in the summer and had not time to grow their lungs, so had to keep to their gills and lead the life of a fish during the winter.
"People often call newts 'askers,' papa," said Willy, "and the lads of the village always kill them when they catch them; they say their bite is poisonous." ”