422 . ANIMAL REPRODUCTIONS. 
covering whether nature would produce fome- 
thing in its place, or regenerate the fifth toe. 
But nothing refulted from the operation. 
A fimilar experiment was alfo made on an- 
other newt, and with as little fuccefs. Undoubt- 
edly the excrefcence was not the germ of a toe 
whofe evolution ceafed. It probably arofe from 
fome accidental caufe: and as it did not include 
the germ of a toe,. the exertions of nature were 
limited to fimply healing the wound. 
Experiment HI. On a monftrous finger.— 
On the 13 of July 1779, my newt catcher 
brought me one with the fecond finger of the left 
hand monftrous. ‘There was a cleft at the extre- 
mity fimilar to what had been obferved in the 
newt of the firft experiment, which alfo feemed 
to be formed by the accidental union of two fin- 
gers ingrafted four-fifths of their length by ap- 
proximation. 
Three days afterwards, the hand was drawn 
of its natural fize, fig, 8. Neither it nor the fin- 
gers appeared to have been fortuitoufly mutilat- 
ed: they were of the fize, colour, and propor 
tion peculiar to a hand fully developed, that had 
never been expofed to any accident. Therefore 
the newt was probably produced with the mon- 
ftrefity. In the finger m, which is evidently larg- 
ey 
