104 SIREN LACERTINA. 
Generat Remarks. The Siren lacertina was first observed in South Carolina 
by Dr. Garden, who sent it with the following remarks to Linneus: “this extra- 
ordinary two-legged animal lives in dams and ponds of fresh-water all over the 
province (South Carolina). Ihave them of all sizes, from 4 inches to 3 feet in 
length, and they always appeared to me the same animal in every thing but 
magnitude.” 
Linneus, struck with the singular appearance and organization of this curious 
reptile, wrote to Dr. Garden, that “nothing had ever so much exercised his 
thoughts, nor was there any thing he so much wished to know as the real nature 
of an animal so extraordinary.” Unable to refer it to any family of reptiles, he 
instituted for it a new order and genus; Ordo HI., Amphibia meantes; Genus, 
Siren; which were published in the seventh volume of the Amcenitates Academica, 
for the year 1765. 
At first Linneus seems to have thought it possible that the Siren might be the 
larva of some large and unknown Salamander,* and not an animal in its perfect 
or ultimate state; and he further says, “if it is a larva the Doctor (Garden) will 
doubtless find specimens with four legs.” This opinion was adopted by the most 
celebrated naturalists until within a few years; thus Lacépéde says that he “never 
for a single moment doubted that this animal was a larva and ought not to form 
anew genus.” Even Cuvier himself was at first inclined to this opinion, though 
he subsequently abandoned it. 
The publication of the correspondence of Garden with Linneus on this subject 
in 1821, settled the question at last; for in 1770 he writes, “I have taken every 
opportunity of examining whether the Siren undergoes any metamorphosis or not; 
and though I have observed them in various stages, from its smallest to its largest 
size, | have never perceived any variation in form or other respects;” and in 
* Siren lacertina an Larva Lacertie? Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 371. 
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