A PLEA FOR PRODIGIES 



It has been the fate of several animals, which 

 are now among the most intimate acquaintances 

 of every budding zoologist, to be at some time 

 or other absolutely disbelieved in. The first 

 specimen of the duck-billed platypus which 

 greeted the eyes of naturalists was not inexcus- 

 ably set down as a manufactured article ; and 

 there have even been those who have doubted 

 the dodo, that grotesque fowl having at one 

 time almost "won its way to the fabulous," as 

 Thucydides puts it. Now there is a very ancient 

 and respectable family of fish which was lately 

 in this unfortunate position, at least as regards 

 one of its few representatives. Every visitor 

 to the Reptile House at the Zoo knows the 

 mudfish, or, if he does not, he ought to. This 

 gifted creature possesses both gills and lungs, 

 and specimens of him usually inhabit the tank 

 at the farther end of the house, labelled " African 

 Lepidosiren." There was supposed to be an 

 American Lepidosiren, but evidence of its exist- 

 ence was so extremely scanty that it had fallen 

 under the cold shadow of scientific doubt, when 



one fine day fresh specimens from South America 



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