by Robert Benchley



You remember that at our last lecture we took up the subject of "Emotional Crisis in Sponge Life" and saw the thousand and one things which a sponge has to think of before it can become a good father or mother sponge.

Now today I want to take up the study of a little animal that we discovered on one of our expeditions to the bottom of the ocean -Dr. Rasmussen and I.

I want to show you some of his peculiar qualities which make him different from some of the other undersea animals and also perhaps to tell you of the pranks and capers which go on under the water while you're not looking. For you may be sure that these little undersea animals have their fun -as who does not? And I, for one, would not have it different. Just because you happen to live under the water all the time is no reason for being an old slowpoke. Now is it?

Now the animal which we are going to study today is called the Free-wheeling Newt, or the Guess-again Fish. So called because no matter what you first guess it to be, you are wrong. I have a specimen here in the tank which I will show you.

Ah ha! A little irritable today, I guess. Didn't have his nap. Well, anyway, perhaps I'd better show it to you on the chart first. Now you all know what the Common or Grade A Newt looks like, but the Free-wheeling Newt is quite different. In fact, it should hardly be called a newt at all, as it has none of the characteristics of the newt except the face.

And as you will see, a newt's face isn't really very much to go by.

Ah, it is a face in a way, and yet, in a way, it isn't a face. You know what I mean? Ah -this was taken when the light was poor so it isn't very good of him. This soft shoulder here was the result of an accident when he was little. Now here is a rather attractive enlargement of a newt's face, which gives you a better idea of his character.

As you'll see, he has no ear on this side. He has no ear on the other side, either, but we didn't think it worth while to ink the information in.

This particular newt became more or less a personal pet of mine and we called him Harry. In fact, he grew to be more like a child of our own than a newt, except, of course, he looked more like a newt than a child of our own, and in this way we were able to tell the difference.

Now here is a group of baby newts, taken by a children's photographer one afternoon while they were having a baby party. This little rascal here tried to get away, but the camera was too quick for him.

Now the Free-wheeling Newt, whose private life we are going to take up today, is entirely different, and resembles more -uh -well, it isn't a squirrel, either. Did you ever see a bunch of gra -uh -sort of a bunch of grapes -you know -with uh -bunch of grapes with a mouth on it?

I do wish I could show you the specimen we have here. Because it might -oh, temperamental little beggar, isn't he? Well, anyway, the main point that I wanted to make about the Free-wheeling Newt today is his extraordinary behavior during the courting season. Now the courting season opens on the 10th of March and extends on throught the following February -leaving about ten days for general overhauling and redecorating. The peculiar thing about newt courtship is its restraint. The entire maneuver is carried on with a minimum distance of fifty paces -that is, newt measure -between the male and the member of the opposite sex -the female.

Now we have . . . Now we have here on the chart a diagram showing the uh -Pittsburg City Hall. That can't be right. It must belong on another chart. Ah, Dr. Rasmussen -how did this get here? I don't like to have things like this happen. Well -uh -this more like it. Figure 5 -the Newt Courtship. This is a diagram showing the maneuvers of the male during courtship. "A" represents the male and "B" the female.

The space between "A" and "B" can be used as a croquet ground.

Now the male, as you see, is trying to make himself attractive to the female and not being very successful about it. This may be due to the fact that the newt is not very sharpsighted, and sometimes he doesn't quite see what it is he's trying to attract. In order ro prove this point, which we had suspected all along, we took away the female and substituted in her place a small rubber eraser. This seemed to make no difference at all to the male, for he continued to exert himself with all his charm, under the impression that he was making a conquest. If I could only somehow show you the Free-wheeling Newt which we have here, it might help you to understand a little story that I am going to tell you about its capture. But no -I guess not. Anyway, the day that we caught it was a memorable one for our expedition. In the first place, Dr. Rasmussen caught cold. This was bad enough, but when we pulled in the nets with the first day's catch, we found that we'd pulled in a mass of "double-ply" gurry, or "Neptune's Necklace," a sample of which I have here. Now it was Dr. Rasmussen's interesting job to separate the little animals from this mass of gurry and to catalogue them according to size, species, and odor. And I'm sure that Dr. Rasmussen felt more than repaid for his pains when he saw the interesting additions we made to the museum's collection. Now on this particular day Dr. Rasmussen drew in among the gurry a small male watermelon fish, so called because it is full of seeds like the male watermelon. Then there were some cross-stitch barnacle, a few hundred yards of a weedy growth resembling onion soup, and a safety-razor blade, on which Dr. Rasmussen cut himself rather badly.

So we came to the Free-wheeling Newt quite by accident.

It took a dislike to Dr. Rasmussen immediately and sting him fifteen or twenty times.

Then much to his surprise it disappeared. It disappeared, but it continued to sting him.

Now it was this way that we discovered that the Free-wheeling Newt, in common with the Grade A Newt, is endowed by Nature with protective coloration, which means that it can change its color at any time, blending into the background -to disappear and thereby elude its enemies.

Really, Dr. Rasmussen -I think that we must get our specimen out of the tank. Would you mind coming over here and helping me? You seem to be a little better at it -in the water. And I'll stand by ready to take it over and show the class just how it works. Oh, careful -careful -don't hurt it. There we are. Now you see? There we -well, well it's there -but I guess we weren't quite quick enough. Oh, well -some other time -perhaps.

From "The Courtship of the Newt" © 1938 by Loew's, Incorporated

(back)