24 
does occasionally gnaw and tear its food. Some- 
times^ wlieii tlie worm, wiiicli I have given my ani- 
mal, was uncommonly large, he has shown himself 
incapable of taking it all at once. But, in general, as 
I have already observed, he swallows his food with a 
celerity of w’such I am not acquainted with a similar 
example in the animal kingdom. 
The Siren, like many other animals of the class of 
amphibia, appears to be very tenacious of life. I 
have been assured, that it often escapes into the mud, 
even after a considerable portion of its tail has been 
cut off by the spade, or by other means. The facili- 
ty with which it is removed from its native climates, 
into the more northern climates, where it is easily 
kept alive, without any very exact attention to the 
temperature of the water, or the atmosphere, in which 
it is preserved, seems plainly to show, that there be- 
longs to this reptile a certain hardihood, in which 
respect it appears to differ from the Proteus angui- 
nus. — The living Siren, which is now before me, 
was completely recovered to health and strength, af- 
ter having been, for several days, exposed in water 
to the temperature of about 33 or 34 of the thermo- 
meter of Fahrenheit; and even after it had been, for 
several hours, locked up as it were in the ice. It is 
true, that this rough experiment subjected the animal 
to great inconvenience, and even to much danger. 
* # # * 
I have some doubt, whether the Siren which has 
been the subject of my inquiries and dissections, be 
not specifically different from the Siren lacertina of 
