a doubtful amphibious Animal of Germany. 2-57 
strong longitudinal fibres, narrow on the forehead, but very large 
on the occiput : in the middle of this there is a thin narrow 
stratum of straight longitudinal fibres, covering the occiput 
itself, and extending from the point of the heart-shaped muscle, 
over the neck and spine. By these very strong muscles, the 
head appears of a large size, and the rostrum is very conspicuous, 
which otherwise, according to the form of the bones, would be 
very flat, narrow, and almost cylindrical. 
The skin is in some places firmly connected with the muscles 
of the head ; but its strongest connection is on the outer edge 
of the rostrum, with the bone itself, (where it forms, by a 
duplicature, a large thick lip,) and on the sides of the occiput, 
where it forms the branchial appendages ; these are a con- 
tinuation of the epidermis, forming, or at least investing, blood 
vessels attached by a duplicature of the skin to the sides of the 
head. On the back, besides the cover of transverse fibres, is a 
stratum of strong longitudinal ones. 
There is, in each jaw, a row of very minute sharp teeth. 
The tongue is pretty large and fleshy ; it is loose at the point, 
but attached by its root to the lower jaw, and fastened on both 
sides, by two muscular strings, to the os hyoides. 
In the pharynx, above the oesophagus, there is a very small 
oblong slit, or glottis, (like that which, in fishes, leads to the 
swimming bladder by means of a canal,) without epiglottis ; but, 
as it is situated between the longitudinal fibres at the beginning 
of the oesophagus, it contracts and shuts, when the oesophagus 
is longitudinally extended in swallowing the victuals. 
On each side of the lower jaw appear the three branchial 
cartilages, to which, as is above mentioned, the membranes are 
attached. 
MDCCCI. 
LI 
