This moft fingular animal is a native of North Ame¬ 
rica, and the part where it has principally been found 
is the province of South Carolina, where it is not un¬ 
common in muddy and fwampy places, living gene¬ 
rally under water, but fometimes appearing on land. 
It has a fort of fqueaking or finging voice, for which 
reafon Linn^us has applied to it the name of Siren. 
It was firft difcovered by the ingenious Dr. Garden, 
who refided long in South Carolina, and who fent an 
account of the animal, accompanied with fpecimens, 
to Linn^us. Linnaeus in his letter to Dr. Garden 
on this fubjed, declares that'nothing had ever exercifed 
his thoughts fo much, nor was there any thing he fa 
much defired to know as the real nature of this extra¬ 
ordinary creature. It is remarkable that the Siren, 
■yvhen thrown on the ground with a degree of violence, 
breaks in three or four pieces ; in which particular it 
refembles fome of the ferpent tribe. 
In the fifty-fixth Volume of the Philofophical Tran- 
fadions is an account of the Siren by the late Mr, 
Ellis, illuftrated by a figure which fo very accurately 
exprelfcs the animal, that w'e have not fcrupled to copy 
that figure, rather than to give a new one in a different 
pofture. What caufes this animal to approach very 
nearly to the appearance of the larva of a lacerta, is, 
that it is furnifhed on each fide the neck, with three 
pair of ramified branchiae, in the fame manner as the 
larva of the common water-newt. The fpecies of la¬ 
certa to which it feems moft allied is the Lacerta Te- 
guixin of Linnaeus. It grows to the length of nearly 
two feet. 
