AMPHIUMA MEANS. 



91 



Habits. The Amphiuma means lives in muddy waters or in mud. Harlan 

 says they have been found at Pensacola, three feet or more deep in mud, of the 

 consistence of mortar, in which they burrowed like earth-worms. They inhabit 

 the ditches of our rice-fields, and feed on small fish and various fresh-water 

 shells, as Unio, &c; beetles and other insects have also been found in their 

 stomachs. Sometimes like eels they are found on dry land, but for what purpose 

 they approach it is unknown. 



Geographical Distribution. North Carolina must, for the present, be con- 

 sidered as the northern limit of this animal, and it is even very rare in that state. 

 In South Carolina it is more common, but is only abundant in some districts, as 

 about Combahee river. The Amphiuma means is also found in the Floridas, 

 Alabama, and Mississippi, and is said to be abundant in Louisiana. 



General Remarks. This singular reptile was made known to Linnaeus by Dr. 

 Garden of Charleston, South Carolina, so often mentioned in the progress of this 

 work, but at too late a period to allow him to give it a place in any of the editions 

 of the Systema Naturae published during his life time. 



Garden, in his letter to Linnaeus,* describing this reptile, calls it "an unknown 

 animal, the only one I ever saw;" and further he says, "at first sight I suspected 

 it to be another species of Siren, but upon nearer examination I found so many 

 differences, that there proves to be no relationship between them." Two years 

 subsequent to this, I find Dr. Garden, in a letter to Mr. Ellis, of London, for the 

 first time calls this animal "Amphiuma means."t 



As Linnaeus never published any account of this animal, Garden's description 

 was of course locked up in manuscript, and thus our animal remained unknown 

 to other naturalists for just fifty years from the time of its discovery. In 1821, 

 Sir James Edward Smith, the eminent botanist, published the "Correspondence 



* Smith's Correspondence of Linnaeus, vol. i. p. 333. t Ibid. vol. i. p. 599. 



