REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS OF TEXAS 57 



an artesian well in 1896. Like the Proteus of Europe, 

 this species has a very limited range. Its strangest 

 peculiarity is the difference in the length of the limbs, 

 no two in the same specimen being exactly the same. 

 Dr. Stejneger suggests that the limbs are principally 

 used as feelers when the animal works its way along 

 •Jie edges of the rocky walls of underground lakes. 



SIRENID^. 



181. Siren lacertina Lirm. Great Siren : Mud Eel. 



The few scattered Texan localities from which this 

 species has been recorded indicate that its range 

 covers the entire eastern half of the State west even 

 beyond the 100th Meridian. Cope's localities are San 

 Diego, Duval County, and Upson, Maverick County. 

 Mr. Mitchell reports it from Victoria and Calhoun 

 Counties. According to the Dallas News, it has been 

 captured in West Dallas (specimen figured). I have 

 personal information of its occurrence at Athens, 

 Henderson County, in the Trinity River bottoms 

 near Fort Worth, at Kaufman, Cleveland and in Re- 

 fugio County, in all of which localities specimens 

 have been obtained either by me or others. It is 

 found in many of the forest-enclosed lakes of East- 

 ern Texas and is known to the natives as the "lam- 

 prey eel" and by them deemed to be very poisonous. 

 Some of these natives have described a four-limbed 

 "lamprey" or "lampern," which may possibly be 

 Amphiuma means Garden, which is extremely likely 

 to range into this section of Texas. 



HYPOTHETICAL LIST. 



1. Chrysemys ornata Gray. Ornate Terrapin. 



A Mexican and Central American species included 



