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.
[Illustration: "Since that time I have practically lived among the
newts."]
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. Since that time I have practically
lived among newts, jotting down observations, making lantern-slides,
watching them in their work and in their play (and you may rest
assured that the little rogues have their play--as who does not?)
until, from much lying in a research posture on my stomach, over the
inclosure in which they were confined, I found myself developing what
I feared might be rudimentary creepers. And so, late this autumn, I
stood erect and walked into my house, where I immediately set about
the compilation of the notes I had made.
So much for the non-technical introduction. The remainder of this
article bids fair to be fairly scientific.
In studying the more intimate phases of newt life, one is chiefly
impressed with the methods by means of which the males force their
attentions upon the females, with matrimony as an object. For the newt
is, after all, only a newt, and has his weaknesses just as any of the
rest of us. And I, for one, would not have it different. There is
little enough fun in the world as it is.
The peculiar thing about a newt's courtship is its restraint. It is
carried on, at all times, with a minimum distance of fifty paces (newt
measure) between the male and the female. Some of the bolder males may
now and then attempt to overstep the bounds of good sportsmanship and
crowd in to forty-five paces, but such tactics are frowned upon by the
Rules Committee. To the eye of an uninitiated observer, the pair might
be dancing a few of the more open figures of the minuet.
The means employed by the males to draw the attention and win the
affection of those of the opposite sex (females) are varied and
extremely strategic. Until the valuable researches by Strudlehoff in
1887 (in his "_Entwickelungsmechanik_") no one had been able to
ascertain just what it was that the male newt did to make the female
see anything in him worth throwing herself away on. It had been
observed that the most personally unattractive newt could advance to
within fifty paces of a female of his acquaintance and, by some _coup
d'œil_, bring her to a point where she would, in no uncertain terms,
indicate her willingness to go through with the marriage ceremony at
an early date.
It was Strudlehoff who discovered, after watching several thousand
courting newts under a magnifying lens (questionable taste on his
part, without doubt, but all is fair in pathological love) that the
male, during the courting season (the season opens on the tenth of
March and extends through the following February, leaving about ten
days for general overhauling and redecorating) gives forth a strange,
phosphorescent glow from the center of his highly colored dorsal
crest, somewhat similar in effect to the flash of a diamond scarfpin
in a red necktie. This glow, according to Strudlehoff, so fascinates
the female with its air of elegance and indication of wealth, that she
immediately falls a victim to its lure.
But the little creature, true to her sex-instinct, does not at once
give evidence that her morale has been shattered. She affects a
coyness and lack of interest, by hitching herself sideways along the
bottom of the aquarium, with her head turned over her right shoulder
away from the swain. A trained ear might even detect her whistling in
an indifferent manner.
The male, in the meantime, is flashing his gleamer frantically two
blocks away and is performing all sorts of attractive feats,
calculated to bring the lady newt to terms. 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.
In order to test the power of observation in the male during these
manœuvers, I carefully removed the female, for whose benefit he was
undulating, and put in her place, in slow succession, another (but
less charming) female, a paper-weight of bronze shaped like a newt,
and, finally, a common rubber eraser. From the distance at which the
courtship was being carried on, the male (who was, it must be
admitted, a bit near-sighted congenitally) was unable to detect the
change in personnel, and continued, even in the presence of the rubber
eraser, to gyrate and undulate in a most conscientious manner, still
under the impression that he was making a conquest.
At last, worn out by his exertions, and disgusted at the meagerness of
the reaction on the eraser, he gave a low cry of rage and despair and
staggered to a nearby pan containing barley-water, from which he
proceeded to drink himself into a gross stupor.
Thus, little creature, did your romance end, and who shall say that
its ending was one whit less tragic than that of Camille? Not I, for
one.... In fact, the two cases are not at all analogous.
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 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. An ideal existence, I'll tell the
scientific world.
Over here on the right of the log are the Master Draggers. Of all the
newt workers, they are the most futile, which is high praise indeed.
Come, let us look closer and see what it is that they are doing.
The one in the lead is dragging a bit of gurry out from the water and
up over the edge into the sunlight. Following him, in single file,
come the rest of the Master Draggers. They are not dragging anything,
but are sort of helping the leader by crowding against him and eating
little pieces out of the filament of his tail.
And now they have reached the top. The leader, by dint of much
leg-work, has succeeded in dragging his prize to the ridge of the log.
The little workers, reaching the goal with their precious freight, are
now giving it over to the Master Pushers, who have been waiting for
them in the sun all this while. The Master Pushers' work is soon
accomplished, for it consists simply in pushing the piece of gurry
over the other side of the log until it falls with a splash into the
water, where it is lost.
This part of their day's task finished, the tiny toilers rest,
clustered together in a group, waving their heads about from side to
side, as who should say: "There--that's done!" And so it _is_ done, my
little Master Draggers and my little Master Pushers, and _well_ done,
too. Would that my own work were as clean-cut and as satisfying.
And so it goes. 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.
And, after all, what more has life to offer?