NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 



61 



in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June 5th, 1766, in his 

 account of the mud inguana, an amphibious bipes from South 



METAMORPHOSES OF NEWT. 



Carolina, that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the 

 land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. 5 Lest I should be suspected to 

 misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own words. 

 Speaking of the opercula or coverings to the gills of the mud 

 inguana, he proceeds to say that, " The form of these pennated 

 coverings approaches very near to what I have some time ago 

 observed in the larva or aquatic state of our English lacerta, 

 known by the name of eft, or newt ; which serve them for cover- 

 ings to their gills, and for fins to swim with while in this state ; 

 and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, when they 

 change their state and become land animals, as I have observed, 

 by keeping them alive for some time myself." 



Linnaeus, in his " Systema Naturae," hints at what Mr. Ellis 

 advances more than once. 



Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one 

 venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that 



