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Show 1895.] DB. J. DE BEDEIAGA ON THE PYEENEAN NEWT. 159 when, after having assured them that these animals neither " sting " nor bite, I was bitten by one in their presence. M. aspera bite not only when they are caught and squeezed but also amongst themselves; a phlegmatic female will for instance bite a male when she is annoyed by his courtship. The male of M. rusconii also bites, not in self-defence, but in order to seize a female and prevent her from escaping when pairing. M. aspera, on the contrary, does not make use of its jaws during the act of fecundation ; the male seizes the female merely with the muscular tail, which he raises and twists round the hind part of the female's body. The attempts of the female to escape are generally in vain; each of her movements forwards in order to slip out of the noose formed by the tail of the male induces the latter to press her tighter, and as soon as she is subdued the male begins to give her other proofs of his amorous disposition by caressing her anal prominence with his toes. The male lies during the sexual embrace under the female, their heads are turned in the same direction and the auus of the male is just under that of the female; the latter can therefore, as soon as she is disposed to be fecundated, gather the spermatophore immediately after the emission from the cloaca of the male and, so to say, suck it in the cloaca without separating from the male. Fecundation and oviposition very often take place at the same time; the male probably exercises a pressure upon the oviducts, forcing them to discharge their contents and thus acts as a midwife. The attitude of the couple during their amorous evolutions is shown in fig. 1 (Plate VI.). The amplexus may last for hours and sometimes degenerates into a torture for the female. The latter is a captive in the most awkward position so long as it pleases the male; the latter rules all the movements of the couple, and the female often is in agony when she feels the want of a breath of air, and has to wait until the male drags her to the surface of the water. Often the male fails in his attempts to embrace the female, and instead of twisting his tail round her abdomen he girds higher up round her neck : the female then becomes suffocated after a short while. M. aspera has been observed pairing towards the end of June. Last year when I visited the Pyrenees the beginning of the summer was winter-like, the ice melted in the lakes very late, in some of them at the end of July; newts appeared about the 22nd of July, and I found them pairing or depositing their eggs in the last clays of July. I caught at the same time several full-grown larvae which had of course hibernated in the lake. These larvae were still more difficult to get at than the adult specimens, as they are very quick in their movements and very shy. The amorous evolutions of M. aspera can be observed nearly at every season of the year in captivity; very often it is sufficient to put a well-fed couple under the water-pipe and let the water run over the animals, and the male seizes the female immediately with his tail. Specimens of M. aspera are rather easily kept in captivity during |