13 



Amphiuma Means, Ciarden. 

 Amphiuma; Congo Snake. 



Gardeu, loc. cit. Holbrook, 1842, 54, 5, 89, pi. 30; Bouleuger, 1«82, 

 38, 83 ; Cope, 1889, 51, 216, with figures. 



Body long aud eel-like. Head narrower and more pointed than is 

 usual among the batrachians. A single gill-slit on each side. Eyes 

 extremely small, barely seen through the skin. Maxillary and vomero- 

 palatiue teeth forming four nearly parallel rows in the roof of the mouth. 

 No external gills in the adults. Fore and hind limbs present, extremely 

 feeble in development. Digits on each somewhat variable, usually two 

 or three. Length of head (snout to gill-cleft), in length from snout to 

 vent about ten times. Tail about one-fourth the total length, com- 

 pressed, slender and pointed. Skin everywhere smooth. 



Color dark slaty or reddish brown, paler below. Lower jaw aud 

 edge of upper lip yellowish. 



The amphiuma may reach a length of three feet. It is found from 

 the Carolinas west to Louisiana. The author has taken it at Little 

 Rock, Arkansas, and has seen a specimen in the National Museum at 

 ' Washington which was taken at Jefferson ville, Indiana, by Mr. George 

 Spangler. The specimen is fifteen inches long and was received at the 

 Museum March 25, 1880. Careful observations along the Ohio and 

 Wabash Rivers will no doubt result in bringing additional specimens of 

 this interesting animal to light. 



This, like the Siren, appears to be a mud-loving species. Its whole 

 structure appears to adapt it to burrowing about in the mud at the 

 bottoms of creeks and rivers and ditches. Its head is long and pointed, 

 and the bones of the skull firmly bound together, as if to render the head 

 the point of a drill. The first instinct of the animal, when put into any 

 vessel, seems to be to burrow out of sight. This habit of burrowing in 

 mud has been observed ever since the discovery of the creature. Har- 

 lan (55, 86) speaks of them as " burrowing in the mud in swamps, or in 

 the vicinity of streams, where it searches for its food and hibernates, 

 occasionally visiting the dry land." Other specimens are spoken of as 

 having been found several feet beneath the recent alluvial deposit, under 

 the decayed trunk of a ti-ee. The same author {30, 188) states that he 

 had been informed that " they are sometimes discovered two or three feet 

 under mud of the consistency of mortar, in which they burrow like 

 worms, as was instanced in digging near a street in Pensacola, when great 

 numbei'S were thrown up during the winter season." 



The food of this animal consists of a variety of aquatic animals. Har- 

 lan says that in the stomach of some were found small fishes and beetles. 

 Holbrook adds to their diet small mollusks. 



