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.).