PACIFIC COAST NEWT. Notophthalmus torosus (Rathke)

Field characters.—Lizard-like in form, but without scales; skin soft and moist. Total length of adults about 6-1/2 inches. Coloration reddish brown to blackish brown above, orange or pale yellow beneath; skin rough, with many low, black-tipped points when animal is on land, becoming smoother when in water, especially in males. Movements slow amd deliberate.

Occurrence.—Resident chiefly in Upper Sonoran Zone on west slope of Sierra Nevada. Recorded at Pleasant Valley and near Coulterville, and reported from Smith Creek (6 miles east of Coulterville in Transition Zone). Gathers in pools of quiet water during spring months; usually on land at other times of year, and then solitary.

We found the Pacific Coast Newt or "water dog" at a few localities in the western foothills of the Yosemite region. It may be expected to occur in any of the canons there which have pools of water lasting through the summer months; for the newt is the only one of our local species of salamanders which, like the toads and frogs, repairs to the water to deposit its eggs.

At Pleasant Valley in mid-May of 1915 we were told that, a month previous, "red salamanders" had been common in the creeks. On May 11, 1919, two of these animals were seen floating lazily with legs outstretched in a pool in Blacks Creek. When pursued they laid their feet close against their sides and wriggled, fish-like, to safety in the deeper parts of the pool.

Elsewhere it has been learned that the adults of this species enter the water in late winter, lay their eggs there in the spring, and then all but a few of the adults leave the pools. Thenceforth, until the following winter, the adults live on land, spending much of the time in damp places under logs. The egg masses are fastened to grass blades or stems in the water. Each mass includes one to twenty or more eggs, each in a small capsule. The capsules are massed into a firm, transparent, globular body about an inch in diameter. The tadpoles, after hatching out, live in the water for a number of weeks. In late summer they lose their gills and go through other transformations fitting them for terrestrial life and then quit the pools, save for the return each season at breeding time.