346 Mr Ncill on the Habits of a 



phenomena of nature can have for their final object only a clear 

 conception of our own nature, thus the investigation, with the 

 principal topics of which we have now been occupied, at last leads 

 us to consider, how the differences of climate manifest themselves 

 in the character, in the civilization, and, perhaps, even in the 

 development of the language of different tribes of the human 

 race. This is the point where the important doctrine of the dis- 

 tribution of heat over the globe comes to be connected with the 

 history of mankind, and beyond which it ceases to be an ob- 

 ject of purely physical inquiry. 



Some Account of the Habits of a Specimen of Siren lacertina, 



which has been Jcept alive at Canonmills, near Edinburgh, 



for more than two years past. By Patrick Neill, A. M., 



F. R. S. E. and Sec. W. S * Communicated by the Author. 



XT is more than half a century since Dr Alexander Garden 

 of Charleston, South Carolina, sent to the distinguished Mr John 

 Ellis of London, specimens of a reptile found in marshes in his 

 neighbourhood, remarkable for possessing both external gills and 

 internal lungs, and for having fore-feet but no hind-feet. Dr Gar- 

 den stated, that he had seen specimens of very different sizes, all 

 possessing the gills, and having only fore feet ; and that there 

 did not exist in South Carolina any lizard, of which this animal 

 could be regarded as the larva. Mr Ellis, in his excellent ac- 

 count of the reptile in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. Ivi., 

 accordingly describes and figures a young one, 9 inches long, 

 and one full grown, or 2 J feet long ; yet both possess the gills, 

 and both have two feet only ; the feet have four toes, and each 

 toe is furnished with a claw ; and he mentions that the animal 

 emits a " croaking noise or sound," while the |X)ssessing of any 

 kind of voice is not charactenstic of a larva. These facts, and 

 the examination of a dead specimen, transmittt^d by Mr Ellis 

 to the illustrious Swedish naturalist Linnaus, were enough to 

 satisfy him that it was not a larva, but a perfect animal of the 

 most truly amphibious character; and he therefore created for 

 it a new order, Meantes, among his Amphibia. Several distin- 

 * Read before the Werner iaii Natural History Society, 12th January 1828, 



