628 On the Snake-Wee Proteus. 



a bag-net fixed to the end of a long pole. The smallest so 

 fished up hardly exceed more than 3 in. ; and the largest are 

 about 15 in. in length. In diameter they likewise vary from 

 a quarter of an inch to about one inch and a quarter. But 

 it is not yet ascertained what size they attain when very old, 

 or even the number of years they may live. 



When at Graetz, the curator of the museum (Johanneum) 

 showed me a fine living specimen of the Proteus. It was in 

 a tub of water, with a piece of tufa at the bottom, under 

 which it was fond of hiding itself. The tub, covered with a 

 piece of board, was placed in a dark closet. On being ex- 

 posed to the daylight, the animal retreated under the cellular 

 tufa ; and, on being taken out of the water and handled, it 

 displayed every symptom of fear and dislike; and its branchiae 

 then became of a very vivid and beautiful crimson, or deep 

 red coral-colour. It was only kept out of the water two or 

 three minutes at a time. The curator informed me that it 

 had been so confined for six years, and that it had never 

 eaten any thing; but, in some freshly caught specimens, 

 when opened after death, the bellies contained the remains 

 of snails. The water was occasionally changed ; and it doubt- 

 less subsisted on the animalcula therein contained. The size 

 of its mouth, and the number of its teeth, show that it actually 

 devours and masticates some creatures much larger than the 

 infusoria that usually are found in all waters. This Proteus 

 appeared, however, to me to be somewhat benumbed or 

 asleep, as, even when touched by the hand, it moved very 

 gently ; but the day, being a damp, cold, and foggy one (No- 

 vember 9.), might, perhaps, much affect it, and so render it 

 more dull and torpid. 



It is therefore impossible from this specimen, although so 

 long in confinement, and constantly watched by the curator, 

 to draw any correct ideas of its true habits and modes of 

 catching and eating its prey, whatever it may generally con- 

 sist of. But I am inclined to say that, in its natural abode, 

 in dark pools and lakes, many hundred feet below the earth, 

 it is not only an active creature, swimming with great ease, 

 and running on its four feet with agility upon the mud, but 

 it also commits great destruction among slugs, snails, and 

 other fluviatile Mollusca ; perhaps even devouring the fry and 

 spawn of frogs, and of fishes, &c, which may be carried into 

 those subterraneous lakes by the rivers Poick, Wippach, &c, 

 that run into and communicate under ground, amongst the 

 numerous caverns and fissures of that cellular limestone 

 district. 



The Proteus, though branchipneumonian, and possessing 

 a double apparatus for breathing, I have been told, cannot 



