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fc and if To, it muft be a new and very diftindt genus, 
nndfihould mod: properly have filename of Siren. 
•“ I cannot poffibly defcribe to you how much this 
c - two-footed animal has exercifed my thoughts; it it 
*' is a larva, he will no doubt find fome of them with 
“ four feet. 
“ It is not an eafy matter to reconcile it to the larva 
“■of the lizard tribe, its fingers being furnifhed with 
*• claws; all the larvas of lizards, that I know, are 
“ without them (digit is muticis). 
“ Then alfo the branchiae or gills are not to be 
“ met with in the aquatic lalamanders, which are 
“ probably the larvas of lizards. 
“ Further, the croaking noife or found it makes 
“ does not agree with the larvas of thefe animals ; 
“ nor does the fituation of the anus. 
“ So that there is no creature that ever I faw, that I 
long fo much to be convinced of the truth, as what 
this will certainly turn out to be.” 
I am, with the greated. refpedt, 
the Royal Society’s 
moft obedient humble fervant, 
Gray’s Inn, 
June 5, 1766. 
John Ellis. 
P. S. In a letter lately received from Dr. Garden, he 
mentions one remarkable property in this animal, 
which is, that his fervant endeavouring to kill one ol 
them, by dafhing it again ft the ftones, it broke into 
three or four pieces : he further fays, that he has had 
an opportunity of feeing many of them lately of a 
much larger fize,and that he never faw one with more 
than two feet ; fo that he is fully convinced, that it 
is quite a new genus of the animal kingdom. 
Received 
