286 Barnes on Batractan Animals and doubtful Reptils. 
Triton Lateralis. Say. Long’s Expedition, 1 vol. 5 p. 
Menobranchus Lateralis. Harlan. 
Proteus of the Alleghany river. Dr. Mitchill. A. J. §. 
ut supra. 
Siren Lacertina. Schneider. H. Amph. 48. 
DESCRIPTION. ; 
This Proteus grows to the length of two feet. (Masor DE- 
LAFIELD.) Body smooth and without scales, slimy, soft, 
spotted with black, and pervious with many pores. Tail 
compressed and ancipital, lanceolate, spotted on both sides, 
Head broad, flat and fleshy, truncate or sub-emarginate be- 
fore. Eyes small. Nostrils minute, placed in the margin 
of the upper lip. Nose broad and depressed, lips flabby and 
covering the jaws. Tongue broad, entire, free at the point, 
one fourth of an inch. Teeth conic, obtuse, small, rather 
distant, those in the upper jaw less. Mouth opening to the 
eneath. Anal fissure longitudinal. Three ramified and 
fringed branchize opposed to two branchial apertures, which 
furnished with cartilagi tubercles as in fishes ; the up- 
per and lower arch of the branchize adnate to the skin. In 
the Proteus from the Alleghany River there is a black stripe 
from the nostrils, passing over the eyes and disappearing be- 
hind; but this mark is not found in the Proteus from 
s. They are, however, of the same species, differing 
slightly in color. ‘This Proteus inhabits all the great Lakes. 
It is frequently caught at the falls of Onion River, about one 
mile and a half from Burlington, Vt. The most favorable 
season is in the spring, when the water is cold. With hooks 
attached to set lines, five or six are sometimes caught in a 
night, though not at all desired by the fishermen ; for they are 
universally beheld with abhorrence; and scarcely ever 
touched by the hand, even to disengage them from the hooks. 
When ey heme to be inclosed in the nets among fishes, 
they are carefully buried as poisonous; and when they take 
the hook, they are sometimes beaten and sometimes burned 
_ to death, before they are detached, by cutting their mouths 
with a pen knife. It seems that the most favorable sitnation, 
for the capture of them, is at the lowest falls of small streams 
running into the Lakes ; such as Onion River and the outlet 
of Lake George. In the Western Lakes they may be taken 
with the spear, if the fishermen can be persuaded to strike 
them; but to this they are generally very much averse. 
Several specimens were found in the Erie Canal when the 
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