An Unusually Giant Clean Newt. Who wrote this letter in 1977?

UNUSUALLY LARGE SMOOTH NEWT

Pricey Sir,

On the 18th October, 1977, I acquired a Frequent or Clean newt of remarkable dimension, it measures 101 millimetres from head to tail, and was present in a suburban space of Southampton.

Previously I’ve had many newts of such species, however by no means one so massive.

Malcolm Smith provides in his “New Naturalists” e book the utmost size for a 4 12 months previous feminine easy newt as being 97 millimetres.

The newt I’ve got here from a small fish pond in a again backyard, the place there have been many such newts, however of smaller dimension.

The grid reference is Map SU41/51 lat. 142 Lengthy. 444. I might be very grateful when you would inform me if this specimen is the longest reported.

Yours faithfully,

C.G. Packham

The letter appeared within the E-newsletter of the British Herpetological Society, December 1977.

C.G. Packham is after all the BBC wildlife presenter, Christopher Gary Packham, then aged 16.