288 Barnés on Batracian Animals and doubiful Reptils. 
difference of fifteen in this very animal, when the whole, and 
not the dorsal vertebers only, are enumerated. His words 
are, “* from twenty to thirty-five.” (Long’s Ex. 1 vol. 7th 
ow then can the reason exclude a GENUS, which 
includes a SPECIES? Is it not saying that a part is greater 
than the whole? that the greater does not include the less ? 
Again, the same author tells us that “‘ the number of vertebre 
ibs, in the aquatic Salamandrz, appears to differ in 
different species.” Surely then may not the number be per- 
mitted to differ in the same genus? If not, then there must 
be more geuera than species. But it may be answered that 
the two species of Sloth, viz. the Bradypus tridactylus, with 
Either Dr. Harlan’s concession, or this statement of 
Schreibers, is more than sufficient to class the animal in ques- 
tion in the same genus with the Proteus of Carniola. an 
it be asserted that any genus, nay, any species of vertebrated 
animals has always and uniformly the same number of joints 
in the back bone? Has not Dr. Harlan found, even in the 
uman subject itself, an occasional difference in this particu- 
lar? But what is the amount of this difference, so much in- 
sisted on as to induce the author to say that the animal, de- 
scribed by Dr, Mitchill, “has, in reality, no affini 
Proteus?” The dorsal vertebers of the Proteus, according to 
Schreibers, are 26 or 28. The same bones of the Proteus of 
the Lakes are 19, and the whole difference between them 
is 7 or. 9, 
? Bia po number of the vertebers in the P. Anguinus is - 
56. le number of the same bones in the P. Late- 
