This mod lingular animal is a native of North Ame- 

 rica, and the part where it has principally been found 

 is the province of South Carolina, where it is not un- 

 common in muddy and fwampy places, living gene- 

 rally under water, but fometimes appearing on land. 

 It has a fort of fqueaking or ringing voice, for which 

 reafon Linnaeus has applied to it the name of Siren. 



It was firft difcovered by the ingenious Dr. Garden, 

 who refided long in South Carolina, and who fent an 

 account of the animal, accompanied with fpecimens, 

 to Linn^us. Linnaeus in his letter to Dr. Garden 

 on this fubjcdl, declares that nothing had ever exercifed 

 his thoughts fo much, nor was there any thing he fo 

 much delired to know as the real nature of this extra- 

 ordinary creature. It is remarkable that the Siren, 

 when thrown on the ground with a degree of violence, 

 breaks in three or four pieces ; in which particular it 

 refembles fome of the ferpent tribe, 



In the fifty-fixth Volume of the Philofophical Tran- 

 faclions is an account of the Siren by the late Mr, 

 Ellis, illuftrated by a figure which fo very accurately 

 exprelfes the animal, that we have not fcrupled to copy 

 that figure, rather than to give a new one in a different; 

 pofiure. What caufes this animal to approach very 

 nearly to the appearance of the larva of a lacerta, is, 

 that it is furnilhed on each fide the neck, with three 

 pair of ramified branchiae, in the fame manner as the 

 larva of the common water-newt. The fpecies of la- 

 certa to which it feems moil allied is the Lacerta Te- 

 guixin of Linnaeus, It grows to the length of nearly 

 two feet. 



