in Zoology, a genus of animals belonging to the class of amphibia and the order of meantes. It is a biped, naked, and furnished with a tail; the feet are brahiated with claws. This animal was discovered by Dr Garden in Carolina; it is found in swampy and muddy places, by the sides of pools, under the trunks of old trees that hang over the water. The natives call it by the name of mud-iguana. Linnaeus first apprehended, that it was the larva of a kind of lizard; p. 189. but as its fingers are furnished with claws, and it makes a croaking noise, he concluded from these properties, as well as from the situation of the anus, that it could not be the larva of the lizard, and therefore formed of it a new genus under the name of sirens. He was also obliged to establish for this uncommon animal a new order called meantes or gliders; the animals of which are amphibious, breathing by means of gills and lungs, and furnished with arms and claws.