im 
AGOUTI. MUD-IGUANA, 
knocked down with a stretcher or boat-hook. The net being opened, 
it suddenly sprung up, and dew above fifty yards ; the man who first 
seized it, had several of his fingers bitten off ; and the wound morti- 
fying, he died. It afterwards fastened on the man’s arm who shews 
it, and lacerated it so much, that the muscles are shrunk, and the 
hands and fingers distorted ; the wound is not yet healed, and is 
thought to be incurable. It is said by some to have been described 
by naturalists under the name of a sea-dragon.” 
Agouti. 
The Agouti is an American animal, much resembling the guinea- 
pig, having the characters of the rat kind, with the voice and hair of 
the hog. The hairs are very hard, thick, and glossy, and are of a 
mixed colour, of a reddish and brown, with more or less black; those 
on the belly, however, are yellowish ; its head and whiskers are like 
those of the rabbit kind, but that the nose is sharper, and the upper 
chop longer than the under one, as in the hog kind : the upper lip is 
split as in the hare, and the legs are naked, or have at the utmost 
only a few hairs on them ; the fore feet have four toes, and the hinder 
ones six, and these are much longer than the fore legs ; its tail is very 
short, its eyes very prominent, and its voice altogether resembles the 
grunting of a hog. It is a very voracious animal, devouring its food 
with extreme eagerness, and using its fore feet for hands in the man- 
ner of the squirrel. It runs very swiftly, and is very expert at dig- 
ging, so that it soon buries itself in the earth. When provoked, it 
raises all the hair of its back upright, and strikes the earth with its 
hinder feet. 
The Mud-Iguana. 
This is a very singular animal. It was first observed by Dr. Gar- 
den of Charleston, and afterwards described by Mr. Ellis in his 
Philosophical Transactions for 1766. It has gills, fins, and two feet, 
and is in length from thirty-one to forty inches. They inhabit South 
Carolina, where they are found in marshy and muddy places, by the 
side of pools, and under the trunks of old trees that hang over the 
water. They feed on serpents. The feet appear like little arms and 
hands, each "furnished with four fingers, and each finger with a claw. 
The head is something like an eel’s, but more compressed ; the eyes are 
small, and placed as those of the eel are. This smallness of the eye 
best suits an animal that lives so much in mud. The nostrils are 
very plainly to be distinguished ; these, with the gills, and remark- 
able length of the lungs, shew it to be a true amphibious animal. 
The mouth is small in proportion to the length of the body ; but its 
palate, and inside of the lower jaw, are^well provided with many rows 
of pointed teeth ; and with this, added to the sharp exterior bony 
edges of both the upper and under jaw, the animal seems capable of 
biting and grinding the hardest kind of food. The skin, which is 
black, and full of small scales, resembles shagreen. These scales are 
of different sizes and shapes, according to their situation, but ail 
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