better acquainted with their
natural history.

_The Unknown_.--We shall soon be in that part of the grotto where they
are found, and I shall willingly communicate the little that I have been
able to learn respecting their natural characters and habits.

_Eub_.--The grotto now becomes really magnificent; I have seen no
subterraneous cavity with so many traits of beauty and of grandeur. The
irregularity of its surface, the magnitude of the masses broken in pieces
which compose its sides, and which seem torn from the bosom of the
mountain by some great convulsion of nature, their dark colours and deep
shades form a singular contrast with the beauty, uniformity, I may say,
order and grace of the white stalactical concretions which hang from the
canopy above, and where the light of our torches reflected from the
brilliant or transparent calcareous gems create a scene which almost
looks like one produced by enchantment.

_Phil_.--If the awful chasms of dark masses of rock surrounding us appear
like the work of demons who might be imagined to have risen from the
centre of the earth, the beautiful works of Nature above our heads may be
compared to a scenic representation of a temple or banquet hall for
fairies or genii, such as those fabled in the Arabian romances.

_The Unknown_.--A poet might certainly place here the palace of the King
of the Gnomes, and might find marks of his creative power in the small
lake close by on which the flame of the torch is now falling, for there
it is that I expect to find the extraordinary animals which have been so
long the objects of my attention.

_Eub_.--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 bronchial 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 h