Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1893 — A Two-Headed Lizard. [ARTICLE]

A Two-Headed Lizard.

Some years ago Prof. Cope caused a sensation among scientific men by announcing the discovery of a fossil saurian, the .brain of which, he claimed, was located in the tail. His announced discovery was pretty generally discredited. Recently Mr. Charles £. Hite, taxidermist of the Peary Relief Expedition, and at present teacher in objects of natural history at the summer school at Avalon, New Jersey, was more fortunate than Prof. Cope, for he was able to exhibit in this office and other places a strange lizard, having, besides a perfect head in the place where it ought to be, a rudimentary head, though perfectly formed outwardly, io the place where its tail ought to be. It is, to all intents and purposes, a lizard with two heads, one at each end of its body—although the one at the tail is useless for any purpose as far as known, it remaining inactive. The little saurian is a freak, the second head not being the usual accompaniment of lizards of that species. It was found in some rocks in Southwestern Kansas by Mr. Hi to during a recent lecture in that locality. Whether or not the rudimentary head contains a brain can only be determined after its death, which, from -present indications, is in the distant future, for the little freak is quite at lively and healthy as lizards of its age usually are. Philadelphia Ledges.