20 PBOTEUS 0? THE LAKES. 



Dr. "Williamson furnishes the following information in reference 

 to it : " The Proteus was out of the water only while I carried it 

 from Tinning's wharf to my house — it may he half an hour. I placed 

 it in a bucketful of rain water when I arrived at home in the evening. 

 On the following day it was out of the water again while I carried it 

 to the Normal School, say a quarter of an hour. On arriving there 

 it was put into a basinful of lake water, where it remained for a day 

 or two, until we had a tin cistern prepared for its reception, when it 

 was transferred to that and placed in it in mud and water. It did 

 not thrive among the mud, but grew sluggish, recovering, however, 

 always upon changing the water. After being thus kept for three 

 or four days, clean water was substituted, and worms supplied 

 in abundance. There was no other kind of food offered to it ; but 

 a very fine leech (exceedingly active) was observed in the cistern 

 with it a day or two before it was removed to die. The leech was 

 not thicker than a stout knitting needle, and did not appear 

 to have preyed on the animal — although it was suggested at the time 

 that it might have had something to do with its demise. I cannot 

 avoid the conclusion from all I saw about this specimen of the Proteus 

 of our lakes, that it might have lived much longer had it not been 

 injured by trampling on it at the wharf, by the boys who captured it, 

 and from whom it had received considerable injury, including, as I be- 

 lieve, the loss of the fifth toe of one of the legs, the indications of 

 which are still traceable on the foot, showing that it must have corres- 

 ponded with the other limb." 



Its breathing was active and regular, and the motion and appear- 

 ance of the three fringed sponge-like branchial tufts on each side of 

 the head, as they were dilated and compressed were most graceful and 

 beautiful. The dilation and compression of these branchise Avere 

 generally simultaneous and uniform ; but at times they were irregu- 

 lar and feeble, more particularly towai'ds the close of its life. The 

 color of the upper surface of the animal during life was olive green, 

 somewhat mottled, and tinted here and there with shades of black. 

 The under surface was of a light brown color. Its length is about 

 twelve inches. It has four legs, with four toes on the anterior and 

 five on the posterior. The member of the posterior limb to which 

 the designation of a fifth toe is given, is, however, peculiar, and con- 

 stitutes, indeed the special characteristic of the specimen in question, 

 which appears to distinguish it from other and well-defined species 

 of this branch of the Batrachian family of repl iles. It would rather 

 suggest the idea of a quadrumanous thumb, were not all natural 

 analogies opposed to such a supposition in relation to an animal so 



