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Show 152 DE. J. DE BEDEIAGA ON THE PYEENEAN NEWT. [Feb. 19, the length of the tail; in the latter the hind limb measures a little less. Upper surface generally minutely granulate, with numerous linear grooves and more or less distinct and more or less numerous warts furnished with a dark granular, conical or spine-shaped horny tubercle. These warts are mostly developed along the sides of the body and head, along the limbs and on the tail; they are also very frequent on the upper part of the head and on the back, rather seldom and scarce on the abdomen and on the lower surface of the limbs. In specimens from Lake Gaube, which I consider to belong to var. rugosa, the skin is roughly tuberculous, especially on the base of the tail; the warts are here decidedly conical with spiny tubercles. Very seldom, and, as it seems, only in females during the breeding-season, the skin appears nearly smooth. No distinct carpal or tarsal tubercles. Coloration. (Plate V. figs. 1, 2, 3, 5.) The upper parts are greyish, brownish grey, or olive-grey, uniform or with yellow or yellowish spots. The shade varies in the course of the year and in different individuals at the same period : however, the colours get merely darker or lighter, and the predominant one seems to be as a rule grey, varying from the lightest ash-grey to blackish grey. The yellow-spotted individuals are less abundant thau the uniform ones, and the bright lemon-yellow spots are seldom seen in adults; the yellow is generally very pale or intermixed with grey. These spots are very variable in size, shape, and disposition ; they are either small, round, indistinct and scattered along the sides of the body, or larger, irregular, and disposed quite asymmetrically on the back; very often they are more or less confluent and form a broad vertebral band, which appears sometimes interrupted in different places. In cases when it is absent, the median dorsal line is mostly marked, being generally of a light brownish tint. The yellow spots on the tail are frequently much more marked than those over the body; they are round or rhomboidal, and placed along the upper portion of the tail, or confluent with a yellow band or yellow line which extends over the middle of the tail. This line is nearly always present even in the uniformly blackish specimens, though it is rather seldom of a light and bright colour, but brownish yellow. The dark granules which crown the warts and the spine-shaped tubercles are more distinct in lighter individuals, and especially on the sides of the head, body, and tail, where they are surrounded by a yellowish circle or even placed on yellowish or whitish warts. These light warts may appear in great number on the sides of the body and on the lower portion of the tail; the limbs also possess some. Towards the lower part of the sides of the body, as well as on the sides of the belly, the greyish ground is generally powdered with yellow and spotted with small round or angular and irregularly shaped dark spots: these spots seem never to be absent along the border |