107 



SIREN INTERMEDIA.— Leconte. 



Plate XXXV. 



Characters. Head rather small, flattened; snout small and rounded; neck 

 contracted; spiracles concealed by a fleshy trilobate operculum, smooth above, 

 reticulated and fringed below; colour dusky, approaching to bluish-black. 



Synontmes. Siren intermedia, Leconte, Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. N. Y., vol. i. p. 53. 

 Siren intermedia, Harlan, Med. and Phys. Res., p. 89. 

 Siren intermedia, Wagler, Naturlich. Syst. der Amphib., p. 310. 



Description. The head is sub-oval and rather small, with the frontal region 

 depressed, and the snout small, rounded and not truncated as in the Siren 

 lacertina. The mouth is small; the tongue is small, arrow-shaped, though rather 

 rounded in front, and is only free at its tip, and for a short distance at its anterior 

 and lateral margins; the teeth are very minute. 



The nostrils are latero-anterior. The eyes are small, black, and covered with 

 cuticle, as in the eel. The neck is contracted, and the spiracles or branchial 

 orifices are concealed by a fleshy trilobate covering on each side, which is smooth 

 above, but reticulated and fimbriated below; and this net work seems to be made 

 up of minute filaments resembling the fimbriated gills of the Siren lacertina. 



The body is eel-shaped. The tail is thick at its root, but soon becomes 

 laterally compressed, and towards the tip is ancipital, with a narrow rayless fin 

 above and below. The anterior extremities, which alone exist, are small, short, 



