Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/285

Rh sluggish waters of vast subterranean lakes, whence many rivers take their origin. In these dreary reservoirs, over which a gleam of light has never played, save when the torch of the inquisitive traveller is flashed back from the unruffled surface, are found many Protei, swimming through the waters, or burrowing in the mud which is precipitated by them.

Nearly all that is known of these strange tenants of the bowels of the earth is comprised in the following extract from Sir Humphrey Davy's “Consolations in Travel,” where the appearance of the Protei is graphically described. In a conversation supposed to take place in the magnificent cavern above-named, Eubathes, one of the speakers, says, “I see three or four creatures, like slender fish, moving on the mud below the water.”

“The Unknown.—‘I see them; they are the Protei; now I have them in my fishing-net, and now they are safe in the pitcher of water. At first view, you might suppose this animal to be a lizard, but it has the motions of a fish. Its head and the lower part of its body and its tail bear a strong resemblance to those of the eel; but it has no fins, and its curious branchial organs are not like the gills of fishes; they form a singular vascular structure, as you see, almost like a crest, round the throat, which may be removed without occasioning the death of the animal, which is likewise furnished with lungs. With this double apparatus for supplying air to the blood, it can live either below or above the surface of the water. Its fore feet resemble hands, but they have only three claws or fingers,