334 Dr Dalton jun. on the Proteus anguinus. 



m 

 The Proteus is taken in small hand nets by the peasants, who 



watch for the animal as he lies almost motionless near the 

 bottom of the pool, and capture him by a sudden motion of 

 the net. They are not very abundant, however, and as they can 

 be taken only when the water is perfectly clear, it is seldom 

 that more than fifteen or twenty are obtained during the course 

 of a year. The animals should be kept afterwards in obscurity, 

 and at a temperature as nearly as possible resembling that 

 of the grotto. It is necessary, also, to change the water in 

 which they are kept regularly every day. With these pre- 

 cautions it is said they may be preserved alive for an inde- 

 finite length of time. I have myself kept one of them for 

 several weeks without giving it any food, and at the end of 

 that time it was as active, and nearly as well conditioned as 

 ever ; only the branchise had become somewhat smaller. I 

 am told by M. Fitzinger, the superintendent of the depart- 

 ment of reptiles in the Vienna Zoological Museum, that they 

 have been kept at the museum for over six years, without 

 any other food than the organic matter usually existing in 

 fresh water. 



It is very commonly believed that the Proteus is found 

 only in the Magdalena Grotto. This, however, is an error, 

 as it appears, by a report of M. Fitzinger's to the Imperial 

 Academy of Sciences, in October 1850, that there are no less 

 than thirty-one different localities in which the animal is 

 said to have been found since it was first discovered in 1751. 

 M. Fitzinger himself has seen specimens from eleven dif- 

 ferent localties. Of these the Magdalena Grotto supplied 

 much the greater number, viz., 312 out of 479. The reporter 

 states that, in almost every instance, the animals coming 

 from different grottoes, present such striking peculiarities in 

 size, colour, and shape, that they cannot be considered as be- 

 longing to the same species. Accordingly, he rejects the old 

 name of Proteus anguinus, and adopts instead the generic 

 name " Hypochthon." In this genus he comprises seven 

 different species, as follows : — 

 Hypochthon Zoisii. Hypochthon Laurentii. 



Schreibersii. ... Xanthostictus. 



Freyeri. ... Carrarae. 



Haidingeri. 



