13 
talned, before a cautious naturalist will venture to 
decide upon the full object of Nature, in giving to this 
animal both an extensive system of lungs, very si- 
milar to those of some of the pure, or less mixed 
Amphibia ; and at the same time, a kind of branchial 
apparatus, not very unlike that of some of the fishes ; 
but still more nearly allied to the branchial appen- 
dages f appendices fimbriatae J of the cordyli of sa- 
lamanders, and the larvae of some other families of 
animals. And I hope (as the love and study of 
NATURAL HISTORY are rapidly growing in the United 
States,) that the period is very near at hand, when 
all these points shall cease to be desiderata, in the 
history of an animal which has solicited so much of 
the attention of some of the ablest naturalists that 
Europe has hitherto produced ; and when, of course, 
a better and a surer light shall be diffused over the 
history of the Proteus anguinus, and several other 
animals, apparently of the same natural family, 
which Linnaeus and Gmelin, Schreibers, Shaw, and 
a number of other naturalists, have been compelled 
to speak of as doubtful,’^ or ambiguous. 
There is, 1 confess, one circumstance which has 
sometimes compelled me to hesitate, whether we yet 
know any thing certain relative to the design of 
Nature in furnishing the Siren with both branchiae 
and lungs. It is said that the Proteus anguinus is a 
constant inhabitant of the Sitticher — See ^^from 
which it has always appeared to have been thrown 
out by the rising of the water.^’’ This circumstance, 
* Dr. Schreibers. 
