Newts in Love

by Aussie Meyer
Solving Tips

Story


As we all know, Augustus Fink-Nottle finds nothing more fascinating than the mating habits of newts. Nature conspired, on the week following Valentine's Day, to bring five of his male newts (Felix, George, Horatio, Isidore and Sebastian) together with five of his female newts (Annabelle, Beatrice, Chloe, Delilah, and Lizbeth), with one successful wooing on each succeeding day, Monday through Friday. The masculine newts employed various romantic strategies to catch the eyes of their mates. One changed color to win his lady newt, one inflated his dewlap, one danced in a Figure 8, one blinked very rapidly at his sweetheart, and one did the classic (and exciting!) tail quiver.

All of this would have made fine research for young Fink-Nottle, but he had received a Valentine's Day missive himself, with a poem about how the stars twinkling above in God's daisy chain guided the girl to find in him her true and perfect love angel ... or some kind of tosh like that. In any case. this mash note had him dazed and confused, mixing up and losing his data until all that remained were the 8 clues below.

Can you, with the help of the 8 clues given, help determine which newt courted which on what day of the week, and what romantic stratagem was employed?


./Labels/h_Female.png ./Labels/h_Male.png ./Labels/h_Strategy.png
./Labels/v_Annabelle.png ./Labels/v_Beatrice.png ./Labels/v_Chloe.png ./Labels/v_Delilah.png ./Labels/v_Lizbeth.png ./Labels/v_Felix.png ./Labels/v_George.png ./Labels/v_Horatio.png ./Labels/v_Isidore.png ./Labels/v_Sebastian.png ./Labels/v_Color_change.png ./Labels/v_Inflated_dewlap.png ./Labels/v_Figure_8.png ./Labels/v_Rapid_blink.png ./Labels/v_Tail_quiver.png
./Labels/v_Day.png ./Labels/h_Monday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Tuesday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Wednesday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Thursday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Friday.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Strategy.png ./Labels/h_Color_change.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Inflated_dewlap.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Figure_8.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Rapid_blink.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Tail_quiver.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/v_Male.png ./Labels/h_Felix.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_George.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Horatio.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Isidore.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
./Labels/h_Sebastian.png Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark
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x o blank x o blank x o blank x o blank
x o blank x o blank x o blank x o blank
JavaScript Grid by Scott Noyes

Clues

  1. Chloe and Lizbeth fell for their beaus within 24 hours of each other, but neither fell for Isidore.
  2. Felix clicked with his mate on either the first or the last day.
  3. When Horatio saw a fellow newt score by executing a Figure 8, just watching it exhausted him so, that he slept all the next day and had no contact with any females at all.
  4. The final romantic gesture of the week was the inflating of the dewlap.
  5. Annabelle, and the maiden newt who fell for the tail quiver, made love connections on consecutive days (in some order).
  6. Sebastian won his love later in the week than Delilah's soulmate.
  7. Beatrice went weak in the knees when her suitor changed colors.
  8. Chloe fell in love the day before Isidore impressed his female - one of these pairings involved the rapid blinking, but neither involved the tail quiver.



Solving Tips


Use an X when you are sure that two fields do not match. Use a dot when you are sure that two fields do match. Click once to place an X. Click a second time to place a dot. Click a third time to clear the box.

Select marker color by clicking the colored radio buttons. You can use colored marks to indicate which clue provided a value, or to indicate a guess that might not be correct, or just because you like solving puzzles in teal.

Use the "Save" button to save a puzzle in progress. Use the "Load" button to reload the puzzle. This feature uses cookies - fear not, we aren't tracking you or stealing credit card numbers (we couldn't, even if we wanted to.) At the moment, only one puzzle may be saved at a time on each computer (unless using different browsers or accounts). There is no warning if you save over another puzzle, and no undo!

Use the "Current Solution Window" button to parse the grid for your solution. This feature simply looks for dots in the top set of rows and creates a list that you can copy and paste into your email for submission.

If you want to clear the grid and start over, just refresh the page. Note that there is a bug in IE6 (and possibly other browsers), so that if a color other than the default is selected, that color may appear to be selected after the reload, but the actual color used will be the default.

Feature Requests
What would you like to see added to the JavaScript grid? Send me your requests and ideas.

Bug Reports
If you encounter something strange, or a JavaScript error, or some other oddity, let me know!

Scott
snoyes@gmail.com