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PROTESTANT PROTEUS and this gives him a right to indemnity from the person for whom he accepts or pays. An acceptance or payment supra protest is some- times called an acceptance or payment for hon- or. Generally, where one accepts or pays for honor without designating for whose honor he acts, it will be deemed that he acts for all who were bound by the paper, and he acquires his right of indemnity against all whom he thus protects. But he may designate, if he chooses, the party for whose honor he acts, and then he protects only that party, and has no claim or rights against any other. PROTESTAXT, a collective name for a large body of Christian denominations, embracing in general all except the Roman Catholic and eastern churches. The name originated in 1529 in Germany, at the diet of Spire. The majority of the members of the diet, in union with the representative of the emperor, had passed a resolution that those estates which had shown themselves favorable to the refor- mation should prohibit, until the convocation of an oecumenical council, all further innova- tions in religious matters, and in particular should not allow any alteration in the celebra- tion of the Lord's supper or the mass. To this resolution the evangelical estates, consist- ing of the elector of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg- Anspach, the duke of Brunswick- Liineburg, the landgrave of Hesse, the prince of Anhalt, and 14 imperial cities, refused to submit. They declared their readiness to obey the emperor and the diet in all "dutiful and possible matters;" but against any order con- sidered by them repugnant to " God and his holy Word, to their souls' salvation and their good conscience," they entered, on April 19, a solemn protest. Henceforth they were called Protestants. The signers of the first protest did not fully agree in all their theological views ; but they did agree in the protest against the authority of secular or ecclesiastical boards to compel obedience in matters of faith, and the name Protestant therefore came early into use as the collective name for all the Christian denominations in Switzerland, France, Eng- land, Scotland, Holland, and other countries which proclaimed the Bible to be the only rule of faith. (See Hauff, Die protestantische Eirche in Deutschland, Munich, 1861 ; Schen- kel, Das Wesen des Protestantisms, 2d ed., Schaffhausen, 1862; Frank, Ueber die G- schichte der protestantischen Theologie, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1862-'5 ; De Felice, Histoire des pro- testants de France, Paris, 1870; and Wylie, " History of Protestantism," London, 1874 et seq.) Protestantism is the predominant reli- gion in all the countries of the Teutonic race, excepting the German provinces of Austria; in the United States of America, the German empire, Great Britain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and most of the colonial possessions of these states. The aggregate population connected with or under the influence of Protestant churches at the close of 1874 is estimated in Schem's " Statis- tics of the World " (3d ed., 1875) as follows : DIVISIONS. PiotetUuU. Total population. America 88,000,000 71,800,000 1,800,000 1,200,000 2,200,000 84,600,000 801.000,000 798,000,000 202,600,000 4,400,000 Europe Asia Africa Australia and Polynesia. . Total 110,000,000 1,891,000,000 PROTECS (Laurenti), or Hypoehthon (Merr.), a perennibranchiate batrachian reptile, belong- ing to the same family as the axolotl and the menobranchus. The skin is naked and slimy, the body elongated and cylindrical, and the tail short, broad, and compressed laterally ; the branchial tufts are three pairs, and persis- tent during life; legs four, rather weak, the anterior three-toed and the posterior four- toed. The common proteus (P. anguinut, Laur.) is about a foot long and half an inch in diameter ; it is pale flesh-colored or white, with the branchial tufts bright crimson ; the teeth are small and sharp, in both jaws and on the palate ; the head triangular, and the snout obtuse; the eyes are very small, and without lids. It is found only in the subterranean waters of some caves of Europe, as in Carin- I'rotcus anguinua. thia and Tyrol, and especially in the Adelsberg cavern in Carniola. The respiration is essen- tially aquatic by means of the branchial tufts, though it has rudimentary lungs, rises to the surface to swallow air, and can live a short time out of the water, like the menobranchus ; its motions by means of the legs are sluggish and awkward, but it swims rapidly and with ease by lateral undulations; when the water of its subterranean retreat becomes low, it buries itself in the mud; the food consists of aquatic worms and insects, and soft-shelled mollusks. Several local varieties occur, gener- ally referred to the same species ; one of these is purplish with yellow spots, and larger, wide- ly extended, and coarsely divided gills ; these are described as species of hypochthon by Fitzinger in the Siteungsberichte of the academy of Vien- na for October, 1850. (See MKNOBEANOHTJS.) PROTEUS, in Greek and Roman mythology, a sea god subject to Neptune, whose flocks he tended. At midday he always arose from the flood and slept in the shadow of the rocks on the coast, and those who desired him to fore- tell the future were obliged to seize him at