NEWTS--A FISH WITH LEGS--NEWTS FEEDING--NEWT-CANNIBALS--CASTING
THE SKIN--STRANGE STORIES--ANOTHER NEWT STORY--HATCHING OF
YOUNG--TENACITY OF LIFE--THE STICKLEBACK--ITS PUGNACITY--ITS
COLOURS--ACCLIMATISATION--THE LAMPERN--A RUSTIC
PHILOSOPHER--THE CRAY-FISH--HOW WE CAUGHT IT--REPRODUCTION OF
LIMBS--FRESH-WATER SHRIMP--WOODLOUSE AND ARMADILLO.
The Newts, or Efts, or Evats, as they are called in different parts of
England, can be easily distinguished from the lizard by the flattened
tail, which, being intended for swimming, is formed accordingly.
[Illustration: THE COMMON NEWT.]
Two species of these creatures are found in this country, the common
Water-Newt and the Smooth Newt. These beautiful creatures may be found in
almost every piece of still water, from ponds and ditches up to lakes.
The full beauty of the newt is not seen until the breeding season begins
to come on, and even then only in the male.
At this time the green back and orange belly attain a brighter tint, and
the back is decorated with a wavy crest, tipped with crimson. This crest
is continually waving from side to side as the creature moves, and forms
graceful curves. The newts are equally at home in water and on land, and
in the latter case have often been mistaken for lizards.
One of these animals, when taking a walk, alarmed an acquaintance of
mine sadly. He was rather a tall man than otherwise, and did not appear
particularly timid; but one day he came to me looking somewhat pale, and
announced that he had just been terribly frightened.
“A fish, with legs!” said he, “_four_ legs! got out of the water and ran
right across the path in front of me! I saw it run!”
“A fish with legs!” I replied; “there are no such creatures.”
“Indeed there are, though, for I saw them. It had FOUR LEGS, and it
waggled its tail! It was horrible, horrible!”
“It was only a newt,” I replied, “an eft. There is nothing to be afraid
of.”
“It was the _legs_,” said he, shuddering, “those dreadful legs. I don’t
mind getting bitten, or stung, but I can’t stand legs.”
Newts are very interesting animals, though they have legs, and can easily
be kept in a tank if fed properly. Little red worms seem to be their
favourite food, and the newt eats them in a rather peculiar style. I have
had numbers of newts of all sizes and in all stages of their growth, and
always found them eat the worm in the same way. As the worm sank through
the water, the newt would swim to it, and by a sudden snap seize it in
the middle. For nearly a minute it would remain with the worm in its
mouth, one end protruding from each side of its jaws. Another snap would
then be given, and after an interval a third, which generally disposed of
the worm.
When they have been swimming freely in a large pond, I have often seen
large newts attack the smaller, and try to eat them; but I never saw the
attempt successful, though I hear that they have been seen to devour the
younger individuals. They always came from behind, as if trying to avoid
observation, and then made a sudden dart forward, snapping at the tail
of their intended victim. In confinement I never saw even an attempt at
cannibalism.
Whether it is invariably the case I cannot say, but every newt that I
took cast its skin within a few hours from the time that it was placed in
the glass jar. The general surface of the skin came off in flakes, but
that from the paws was drawn off like gloves, retaining on their surface
all the markings and creases which they exhibited when in their proper
place.
How the drawing off of their tiny gloves was effected I could not see,
though I watched carefully. They looked beautiful as they floated in the
water, being delicate as gossamer, white, and almost transparent. They
might have been made for Queen Mab herself, and were so delicate that I
never could preserve any of them so as to give a proper idea of their
form.
It may be that the change of water might cause the change of skin, for
the water in which they were kept was drawn from a pump, and that in
which they formerly lived was the ordinary soft water found in ponds.
Pretty as is the newt, it is as harmless as pretty, and notwithstanding
has suffered under the reputation of being a venomous creature. The
absurd tales that I have heard of this creature could scarcely be
believed; and how people with any share of sense could receive such
absurdities is matter of wonder. And as usual, the moral of the stories
is, that newts are to be killed wherever found. The belief of the
poisonous character of the newt is of long standing, as may be seen in
the ancient works on natural history. In one of these it is said that
its poison is like that of vipers; and there is a description of the
formation of its tail which is rather beyond my comprehension:--
“The tail standeth out betwixt the hinder-legs in the middle, like the
figure of a wheel-whisk, or rather so contracted as if many of them were
conjoined together, and the void or empty places in the conjunctions were
filled”.
The capture and domesticating of newts gave dire offence in the village
where I lived for some time; and the expressions used when I took a newt
in my hands were not unlike those of the Parisians respecting the toad.
Sundry ill-omened tales of effets were told me. For example: A girl of
the village was filling her pitcher at a stream which runs near the
village, when an effet jumped out of the water, sprang on her arm, bit
out a piece of flesh, spat fire into the wound, and, leaping into the
water, escaped. The girl’s arm instantly swelled to the shoulder, and the
doctor was obliged to cut it off.
This was told me with an immensity of circumstantial details common to
such narrators, and was corroborated by the bystanders. The wounded lady
herself was not to be found, and cross-questions elicited that it “weir
afoor their time”. I asked them how the effet which lived in the water,
and had just leaped out of it, was able to keep a fire alight in its
interior; but they were not in the least shaken, except perhaps in their
heads, which were wagged with a Lord Burleigh kind of emphasis.
Then there was the sexton-clerk-gardener-musician and general factotum,
who had a newt tale of his own to tell. He had been cutting grass in the
churchyard, and an effet ran at him, and bit him on the thumb. He chopped
off the effet’s head with his knife, but his thumb was very bad for a
week.
Once they got the better of the argument, at all events in the eyes
of the owner of the farming stock, and my poor newts were ejected. It
happened thus:--
Two or three specimens I kept in my own room in a glass vase, in order to
watch them more closely; and some six or seven others lived as stock in
the large horse-trough, from whence they could be taken when required.
One day the proprietor came to me and ordered the destruction of my
newts, for they had killed one of his calves.
“But,” I remonstrated, “they cannot kill a calf or even a mouse, for they
have no fangs and very little mouths. Besides, the calf has not come near
this trough.”
So saying, I took up several of the newts, opened their mouths--no easy
matter, by the way--and showed that they had no fangs. And I urged, that
even if they had been as poisonous as rattlesnakes, it would not have
made any difference to the calf, which had never left the cowhouse, and
was at the opposite end of the farm-yard, separated by a barn and several
gates. But all was useless.
“There are the newts, and there is the dead calf!” was the answer; and so
the newts had to go. However, I would not suffer them to be killed, but
put them into a bag and took them back to the pond whence they had come.
Afterwards the proprietor said that the calf died because its mother had
drunk at the trough in which the poisonous newts were.
Now, the funniest part of the story is, that there was not a horse-pond
that did not swarm with efts, and consequently all the foals and calves
ought to have died. Only they didn’t.
The care which the female newt takes in depositing her eggs is very
remarkable.
[Illustration: THE FEMALE NEWT.]
Each egg is taken separately, and by the aid of the fore-paws is
regularly tied or twisted up in the leaves of dead plants, for which
process different people have different reasons. Some think that it is
for the purpose of preventing too ready an access of water, and so to
retard their hatching; while some say that it is to guard the egg against
voracious water-animals. To the latter opinion I rather incline; perhaps
both may be right.
When hatched, the young newt is very like a tadpole, breathing by gills
outside its neck. After a while the gills vanish and the legs appear; but
it keeps its tail. It is rather curious that the frog tadpole puts forth
its hinder-legs first; while in the tadpole of the newt, the fore-legs
are the first to show themselves.
After the gills are lost, the newt breathes by means of lungs; and if
it is in the water, is forced to rise at intervals for the purpose of
breathing.
The tenacity with which these creatures cling to life is quite
surprising. Experiments have been tried purposely to see to what degree
a body could be mutilated, and yet retain life. They have even been
frozen up into a solid block of ice, and, after the thawing of their
cold prison, revived, and seemed none the worse for it. I may as well
mention that none of these experiments were tried by myself, for I am not
scientific enough to care nothing for the infliction of pain; but on one
occasion I did try an experiment, and, as it turned out, a very cruel
one, although it was not intended for an experiment.
I was studying the anatomy of the frogs and newts; and having eight or
ten fine specimens of the latter creature, determined to take advantage
of the opportunity. The first thing was, of course, to kill the creature
without injuring its structure, and I thought that the best mode of so
doing would be to put it into my poison-bottle. This was a large glass
jar filled with spirits of wine, in which was held corrosive sublimate
in solution. This mixture generally killed the larger insects almost
immediately, and seemed just the thing for the newts.
So they were put into the jar--but then there was a scene which I will
not describe, which I trust never to see again, and of which I do not
even like to think. Suffice it to say, that nearly a quarter of an hour
elapsed before these miserable creatures died, though in sheer mercy I
kept them pressed below the surface.
Changing our post of observation from the banks of the ponds to those
of the running streams, we shall find there many creatures worthy of
observation; so many, indeed, that it would be a hopeless task to
attempt to give even a slight account of one-fiftieth of them. I shall,
therefore, only mention two creatures, as examples of the fish; and these
two are chosen because they are exceedingly common, and very different
from each other in colour and habits.
The first of these creatures is the common Stickleback, or Tittlebat,
as it is sometimes called. There are several species of British
sticklebacks; but the commonest, and I think the most beautiful, is the
three-spined stickleback.
These little fish derive their name from the sharp spines with which they
are armed, and which they can raise or depress at pleasure--as I know to
my cost. For being, as boys often are, rather silly, I made a wager that
I would swallow a minnow alive; and having made the bet, proceeded to
win it. Unfortunately, instead of a minnow, a stickleback was handed to
me, which having its spines pressed close to the body, was very like a
minnow. Just as I swallowed it, the creature stuck up all its spines, and
fixed itself firmly.
[Illustration: THE STICKLEBACK.]
Neither way would it go, and the torture was horrid. At last, a great
piece of apple that I swallowed gave it an impetus that started it from
its position; but it was not for some time, that to me appeared hours,
that the fish was disposed of. And even then it left its traces; and if
it would be any satisfaction to the fish to know that ample vengeance was
taken for its death, it must have been thoroughly gratified.
There are few fish more favoured in point of decoration than the
stickleback; although the decoration, like that of soldiers, is only
given to the gentlemen, and of them only to the victors in fight.
They are most irritable and pugnacious creatures, that is, in the early
spring months, when the great business of the nursery is in progress. And
the word nursery is used advisedly; for the stickleback does not leave
her eggs to the mercy of the waters, but establishes a domicile, over
which her husband keeps guard.
The vigilance of this little sentry is wonderful; and I have often seen
fierce fights taking place. Not a fish passes within a certain distance
of the forbidden spot, but out darts the stickleback like an arrow, all
his spines at their full stretch, and his body glowing with green and
scarlet. So furious is the fish at this time that I have sometimes amused
myself by making him fight a walking-stick.
If the stick were placed in the water at the distance of a yard or so,
no notice was taken. But as the stick was drawn through the water, the
watchful sentinel issued from his place of concealment, and when the
intruding stick came within the charmed circle, the stickleback shot at
it with such violence that he quite jarred the stick.
His nose must have suffered terribly. If the stick were moved, another
attack would take place, and this would be continued as long as I liked.
Sometimes a rival male comes by, with all _his_ swords drawn ready for
battle, and his colours of red and green flying. Then there is a fight
that would require the pen of Homer to describe. These valiant warriors
dart at each other; they bite, they manœuvre, they strike with their
spines, and sometimes a well-aimed cut will rip up the body of the
adversary, and send him to the bottom, dead.
When one of the combatants prefers ignominious flight to a glorious
death, he is pursued by the victor with relentless fury, and may think
himself fortunate if he escapes.
Then comes a curious result. The conqueror assumes brighter colours and
a more insolent demeanour; his green is tinged with gold, his scarlet is
of a triple dye, and he charges more furiously than ever at intruders, or
those whom he is pleased to consider as such. But the vanquished warrior
is disgraced; he retires humbly to some obscure retreat; he loses his
red, and green, and gold uniform, and becomes a plain civilian in drab.
Sometimes I have brought on a battle royal between the guardians of
several palaces, by dropping in the midst of them a temptation which they
could not resist. This was generally a fine fat grub taken from a caddis
case. The caddis is large and white, and so can be seen to a considerable
distance.
As this sank in the water, there would be a general rush at it, and the
ensuing contention was amusing in the extreme. First, one would catch it
in his mouth and shoot off; half-a-dozen others would unite in chase,
overtake the too fortunate one, seize the grub from all sides, and tug
desperately, their tails flying, their fins at work, and the whole mass
revolving like a wheel, the centre of which was the caddis worm.
It would be swallowed almost immediately, but the mouth of the
stickleback is much too small to admit an entire caddis, and the skin of
the grub is too tough to be easily pierced or torn. Half-an-hour often
elapses before the great question is settled, and the caddis eaten.
The rapidity of the evolutions and the fierceness of the struggle must
be seen to be appreciated--and it is a spectacle easily to be witnessed;
wherever there are sticklebacks, caddis worms are nearly certainly found,
and it only needs to extract one of these from its case and deposit it
judiciously in the water.
The stickleback is a hardy little fish, and can easily be kept in the
aquarium, if plenty of room be given to it. It has even been trained to
live in seawater, by adding bay-salt to the water in which it dwelt;
so that the plan of pickling salmon alive, by a judicious admixture of
vinegar and allspice with the water, has something to which to appeal as
collateral evidence.
The other representative of the fishes is a very curious one, and can
be easily observed. It is called the “Lampern,” and is shown in the
accompanying figure.
[Illustration: THE LAMPERN.]
In some parts of England the lampern goes by the name of “Seven-eyes,” in
allusion to the row of eye-like holes that may be seen extending along
the side of the throat. These apertures are the openings by which the
water passes from the gills.
The chief external peculiarity in this creature is the mouth, which,
instead of being formed with jaws like those of other fishes, resembles
none of them, not even those of the eel, which it most resembles
externally. Indeed, on looking at the mouth of a lampern, one is forcibly
reminded of the leech, for it is possessed of no jaws, and adheres firmly
to the skin by exhaustion of the air.
Very delicate food are these lamperns, quite as good as the lampreys
themselves, whose excellence is reported to have cost England one of her
kings; yet I never knew but one person who would eat them, and very few
who would even touch them, they also being called poisonous.
In Germany they know better, and not only eat the lamperns themselves,
but, packing them up in company with vinegar, bay leaves, and spices,
export them as an article of sale.
The solitary sensible individual of whom I have made mention was truly
a wise man. He used to offer the young urchins of the neighbourhood a
reward for bringing lamperns, at the rate of a halfpenny per wisketful.
A wisket, I may observe, is a kind of shallow basket, made of very broad
strips of willow; and a wisket filled with lamperns would be a tolerable
load for a boy.
So, for the sum of one halfpenny, that philosopher was furnished with
provisions for a day or more.
Really, the prejudice against the lampern is most singular. Even near
London, when lamperns lived in vast numbers in the Thames, they were only
used as bait, being sold for that purpose to the Dutch fishermen. In one
season, four hundred thousand of these creatures have been sold merely
for bait for cod-fish and turbot.
The scientific name for the lampreys is “_Petromyzon_,” a word signifying
“stone-sucker”. The name is rightly applied; for when the lampern wishes
to remain still in one place, it applies its mouth to a stone, sticks
tightly to it by suction, and there remains firmly at anchor, and defying
the power of the stream. In favourable spots, thousands of these fish may
be seen together, quite blackening the bottom of the stream with their
numbers. They seem specially to affect shallow mountain streams; and,
in spite of the rapid current, wriggle their devious way up the stream
with great rapidity. When they are not quite pleased with the spot on
which they settle down for the time, they scoop it out to their minds in
a very short time. This task is accomplished by means of the sucker-like
mouth. If a stone is placed in a position that incommodes them, they
affix their mouths to it, and drag it away down the stream. In this way
they will remove stones which are apparently beyond the power of so small
a creature. By perseverance they thus scoop out small hollows, about
eighteen inches long and a foot wide, in which they lie in groups so
thick that I have more than once mistaken them for dark logs lying in the
stream, and was only undeceived by the waving of the multitudinous tails.
Year after year the lamperns followed the same course, and chose the same
positions, so that we could at any time tell where these creatures would
be found by the thousand, where they would be found singly, and where
none would be seen at all.
The general thickness of this creature is that of a large pencil, but
it varies according to the individual. The length is from one foot to
fifteen inches or so.
There is a much smaller species of lampern called the Pride, Sand-pride,
or Mud Lamprey, which is not more than half the length of the lampern,
and only about the thickness of an ordinary quill. This creature has
not the power of affixing itself like the lampern, on account of the
construction of its mouth.
Having now taken a hasty glance at the vertebrated animals, we pass
to those who have no bones at all, and whose skeleton, so to speak,
is carried outside. Our representation of aquatic crustacea, as such
creatures are called, will be the Cray-fish and the Water-Shrimp.
[Illustration: THE CRAY-FISH.]
Every one knows the Cray-fish, because it is so like a lobster, turning
red when boiled in the same way. This red colour is brought out by heat
even if applied by placing the shell before a fire, and spirits of wine
has the same effect. The last fact I learned from experience, and was
very sorry that it _was_ a fact, for the red shell quite spoiled the
appearance of a dissected cray-fish that was wanted to look nice in a
museum.
Being very delicate food, and, in my opinion, much better than the native
lobster, they are much sought after at the proper season, and are sold
generally at the rate of half-a-crown for one hundred and twenty.
There are many modes of catching them, which may be practised
indifferently. There are the “wheels,” for example, being wicker baskets
made on the wire mouse-trap principle, which the cray-fish enters and
cannot get out again. Also, there is a mode of fishing for them with
circular nets baited with a piece of meat. A number of these nets are
laid at intervals along the river bank, and after a while are suddenly
pulled out of the water, bringing with them the cray-fish that were
devouring the meat.
But the most interesting and exciting mode of cray-fish catching is by
getting into the water, and pulling them out of their holes.
Cray-fish take to themselves certain nooks and crannies, formed by the
roots of willows or other trees that grow on the bank; and they not
unfrequently take possession of holes which have been scooped by the
water-rat. The hand is thrust into every crevice that can be detected,
and if there is a cray-fish, its presence is made known by the sharp
thorny points of the head,--for the cray-fish always lies in the hole
with its head towards the entrance.
The business is, then, to draw the creature out of its stronghold without
being bitten--a matter of no small difficulty. If the hole is small, and
the cray-fish large, I always used to draw it forward by the antennæ or
horns, and then seize it across the back, so that its claws were useless.
The power of the claws is extraordinary, considering the size of the
creature that bears them. They will often pinch so hard as to bring
blood; and when they have once secured a firm hold, they do not easily
become loosened. Still, the risk of a bite constitutes one of the chief
charms of the chase.
The legitimate mode of disposing of the cray-fish, when taken, is to put
them into the hat, and the hat on the head; but they stick their claws
into the head so continually, and pull the hair so hard, that only people
of tough skin can endure them.
Sometimes, when the bed of the river is stony, the cray-fish live among
and under the stones, and then they are difficult of capture; for with
one flap of their tail they can shoot through the water to a great
distance, and quite out of reach.
It is not unfrequent to find a cray-fish with one large claw and the
other very small. The same circumstance may be noted in lobsters. The
reason of this peculiarity is, that the claw has been injured, generally
in single combat; for the cray-fish are terrible fighters, and the
mutilated limb has been cast off. Most wonderfully is this managed.
The blood-vessels of the crustaceans are necessarily so formed, that if
wounded, they cannot easily heal; and if there were no provision against
accidents, the creature might soon bleed to death.
But when a limb, say one of the claws, is wounded the limb is thrown
off--not at the injured spot, but at the joint immediately above. The
space exposed at the joints is very small in comparison with that of an
entire claw; and as the amputation takes place at a spot where there is a
soft membrane, it speedily closes. In process of time, a new limb begins
to sprout, and takes the place of the member that had been thrown off.
The eyes of the cray-fish are set on footstalks, so as to be turned in
any direction, and they can also be partially drawn back, if threatened
by danger. If the eye is examined through a magnifying glass of tolerable
power, it will be seen that it is not a single eye, but a compound organ,
containing a great number of separate eyes, arranged in a wonderful
order. As, however, a description of an insect’s eye will be given at a
succeeding page, we at present pass over this organ.
At the proper season of the year, the female cray-fish may be seen laden
with a large mass of eggs, which she carries about with her, and by the
movement of the false legs that are arranged in double rows on the under
surface of the tail, keeps them supplied with fresh streams of water.
In process of time, the eggs are hatched; but very few, in comparison,
reach maturity. Even the mother herself is apt to eat her own young, when
they have set themselves free from her control. I have known this to take
place when we were trying to breed cray-fish in a tank. Only one attained
to any size, and even that was not so large as a house-fly when we took
it from the water.
[Illustration: FRESH-WATER SHRIMP.]
[Illustration: TADPOLES AND YOUNG FROG.]
The fresh-water Shrimp may generally be found in plenty in any running
stream. Its appearance and habits very much resemble the Sandhopper, a
little creature that every one must have seen who has walked on a sandy
sea-shore. Like the cray-fish, this little creature carries its eggs
about until they are hatched. It is a carnivorous animal, and is one of
the numerous scavengers of the water, without whose help every stream
would soon become putrid and loathsome.
[Illustration: WOODLOUSE, ARMADILLO, AND PILL MILLEPEDE.]
Certain species of crustacea inhabit the land; two of which are well
known under the titles of Woodlouse and Armadillo. They belong to the
class of crustaceans called “_Isopod_,” or equal-footed, because the
legs are all of the same nature; whereas, in the other crustacean, some
legs are used for walking, and others are turned into claws, &c. The
woodlouse is to be found in myriads under the scaly bark of trees, under
stones, and, in fact, in almost every crevice. It feeds mostly on decayed
vegetable matters, but also eats animal substances, and vegetables that
are not decayed. Some gardeners hold the woodlouse in great horror, and
say that nothing is so hard or so bitter that a woodlouse will not eat
it. If the bark is removed from an ancient willow tree, any number of
these creatures may be discovered, in every stage of existence, scuttling
about in great fear at the unwelcome light, and sticking close to the
wood in hopes that they may not be seen. Dried coats of the woodlouse
may be also seen, empty and bleached to an ivory whiteness. They are
night-feeders; and, although they can run fast enough if disturbed, walk
very deliberately when only employed in feeding.
The Armadillo-woodlouse is very curious, and easily recognised from its
habit of rolling itself into a round ball when alarmed, just like the
quadruped armadillo. Its habits are much the same as those of the common
woodlouse. Formerly the armadillo was used in medicine, being swallowed
as a pill in its rolled-up state. I have seen a drawer half full of these
creatures, all dry and rolled up, ready to be swallowed.
On the preceding cut are two armadillo-like animals, much resembling each
other, but belonging to different orders. Fig. _a_ is the Woodlouse; _b_,
the Pill Millepede, walking; _c_, the same rolled up; _d_ is the true
Armadillo, walking; and _e_, the same creature rolled up.
One of the minute crustaceans, the common Cyclops, is shown on plate J,
fig. 14. Its length is about the fourteenth of an inch; and though it is
so small, the female Cyclops may easily be detected in the water by the
curious egg-sacs.