107 
SIREN (INTERMEDIA.—Leconte. 
Plate XXXV. 
Cuaracrers. Head rather small, flattened; snout small and rounded; neck 
contracted; spiracles concealed by a fleshy trilobate operculum, smooth above, 
reticulated and fringed below; colour dusky, approaching ee black. 
~ . . . . + : 4! . 
Synonymes. Siren intermedia, Leconte, Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist. N. Y., vol. i. De O39: 
Siren intermedia, Harlan, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 89. 
Siren intermedia, Wagler, Naturlich. Syst. der Amphib., p. 310. 
Description. The head is sub-oval and rather small, with the frontal region 
depressed, and the snout small, rounded and not truncated as in the Siren 
lacertina. The mouth is small; the tongue is small, arrow-shaped, though rather 
rounded in front, and is only free at its tip, and for a short distance at its anterior 
and lateral margins; the teeth are very minute. 
The nostrils are latero-anterior. ‘The eyes are small, black, and covered with 
cuticle, as in the eel. The neck is contracted, and the spiracles or branchial 
orifices are concealed by a fleshy trilobate covering on each side, which is smooth 
above, but reticulated and fimbriated below; and this net work seems to be made 
up of minute filaments resembling the fimbriated gills of the Siren lacertina. 
The body is eel-shaped. The tail is thick at its root, but soon becomes 
laterally compressed, and towards the tip is ancipital, with a narrow rayless fin 
above and below. The anterior extremities, which alone exist, are small, short, 
