FROGS AND TOADS. 



281 



caverns in the world is the grotto of the Magdalene, near 

 Adelsburg, in the duchy of Cariiiola. The whole of that 

 region consists of bold, craggy rocks and mountains of 

 limestone formation, perforated with spacious branching 

 caverns, in whose awful recesses sleep the sluggish waters 

 of vast subterranean lakes, whence many rivers take their 

 origin. In these dreary reservoirs, over which a gleam 

 of light has never played, save when the torch of the in- 

 quisitive traveller is flashed back from the unruffled sur- 

 face, are found many Protei, swimming through the waters 

 or burrowing in the mud which is precipitated by them. 

 Specimens have been thrown up by water from a sub- 

 terraneous cavity at Sittich, about thirty miles distant 

 from the grotto of the Magdalene ; and the species is said 

 to exist in the caves of Sicily. 



Sir Humphry Davy, in his "Consolations in Travel," 

 has graphically described the appearance, habits, and 

 localities, of this singular animal. We have room but for 

 the following extract, which bears on the point already in- 

 sisted on in the preceding notes — the intermediate posi- 

 tion of the creature between Fishes and Reptiles : — 



" At first view you might suppose this animal to be a 

 lizard, but it has the motions of a fish. Its head, and the 

 lower part of its body, and its tail, bear a strong resem- 

 blance to those of the Eel ; but it has no fins, and its curious 

 branchial organs are not like the gills of fishes; they form 

 a singular vascular structure, as you see, almost like a 

 crest round the throat, which may be removed without 

 occasioning the death of the animal, which is likewise 

 furnished with lungs. With this double apparatus for 

 supplying air to the blood, it can live either below or 



