376 NATURAL HISTORY. 



The stagnant waters and marshy ground of South Carolina, especially where rice is cultivated, 

 are frequented by a very eel-shaped creature of an olive or blackish colour.* It has the 

 anterior limbs, which are small, ill-developed, and bearing four digits each ; but there are no 

 hind limbs. The tail is flat from side to side, and there are on each side of the neck three 

 very visible gills, increasing in size from the first to the third, and bearing branchial branches. 

 Its eyes are small and covered with skin. The gape of the mouth is not great, and there is no 

 visible ear. Its lower jaw has a horny sheath and several rows of small teeth, and the upper 

 jaw is toothless, but there are teeth on the palate. It lives in the mud, and travels into the 

 water or on to the land occasionally, and it preys on earthworms and insects. In captivity it hides 

 in the mud and devours meal-worms. This lowly-organised Amphibian retains its branchiae and 

 gill-clefts, three in number, through life, and the blood corpuscles are elliptical in outline, nucleated 

 and vast in size, being <, of an inch in length. The lungs are bag-like and long. The Siren has 

 amphicoelous vertebrae and small ill-developed ribs, and the wrist and the ankle are cartilaginous. 



The usual length of the head is one inch, and of the body and tail eighteen inches, but they fre- 

 quently attain the length of three feet. This Siren is covered with a thick mucus, and has a disagree- 

 able smell. When it wishes to inspire it rises to the surface, about three times in twelve hours, and 

 it gets rid of some air under water about once in two hours. It is, however, only an occasional 

 inhabitant of water, and it prefers to live in moist clay or mud. They abound in the rice-fields, 

 being thrown out on the land at certain seasons, when the ditches are cleaned. Formerly they were 

 killed by the slaves, or mangled as being poisonous, and left to be devoured by birds and beasts of 

 prey. Sometimes they leave the soft mud in which they burrow, and take to the water, in which they 

 swim with great swiftness, and at others they go on dry land, but whether in search of food, or to rid 

 themselves of parasitic insects, cannot be determined. Their range is from 45 N. L. to East Florida. 

 They were first observed in South Carolina, and Dr. Garden noticed to Linnaeus that they lived in 

 darns and ponds. 



FAMILY PROTEID^E. 



The Eel-shaped Proteus is the type, and is found in Carniola and Dalmatia, living in the great 

 underground wet caves and subterranean lakes and streams of those remarkable districts. It 

 looks, when swimming, something like a Lizard, with small and very distinct hind and fore limbs, 

 but there is a tuft of branchiae on each side of the neck. The creature is more than a foot in 

 length, and of' the thickness of a finger, and the tail is compressed vertically. The fore limbs have 

 chree short digits, whilst the hind ones have two. Only two gill-clefts exist on each side, and there 

 ai rudimentary lungs besides the branchiae. They are flesh-coloured creatures, and the gills are coral 

 red, and the eyes are hidden in the skin, and are small, but useful. The blood corpuscles are 

 immense, and about fifteen times the size of those of rnan.t A rather long but truncated snout is 

 seen, and the palatine teeth are in two long rows. 



A third family was formerly established to receive the remarkable North American genus 

 Menobranchus, but it is by no means certain that these creatures are not the larvae or the immature 

 condition of an Amblystome called Batrachoceps. The Menobranchus lateralis is from the Mississippi, 

 and the Spotted Menobranchus } comes from Lake Champlain and elsewhere in the lake district 

 of North America. The first has a long body, a flat and broad head, a large compressed tail, curved 

 above. The eyes are small, the nostrils are in front, and the beautiful crimson-coloured branchiae are 

 three in number on each side, and there are two clefts on each side of the neck. The tongue is 

 broad, entire, and free at the fore part, and there is a long, arched series of concentric teeth on the 

 palate, on the front of the vomerine bones. The lower jaw has a pointed set of teeth, and the lips 

 are fleshy. The extremities are four-cleft, and they are without claws. It is of a dusky ash-grey, 

 with dark spots, and there is a streak from the snout over the eyes. They were first caught in 

 .baiting for Cat-fish, and were, of course, reputed poisonous, and much was made about them, 

 although they do not often measure a foot in length. They crawl on the floor of the water, or 

 swim with a serpentine movement, and feed on insects, worms, and shell-fish. 



Tlie second group of the Ichthyoidea, the DEROTREMATA, is remai-kablo for not having branchiso 



* Siren lacet-tina. f Proteus anrjuineus, Metioliranchus punttatus. 



