104 



THE REPTILES AND AMPHIBIA OF BRITAIN, 

 SYSTEMATICALLY ARRANGED. 



A systematic arrangement of the British Aves and Mammifera 

 having already appeared in the Analyst* it occurred to me that a 

 similar Catalogue of the remaining three Classes of British Verte- 

 brata might prove acceptable to the zoological student. If the at- 

 tempt be approved of, I may, probably, be induced to follow it up 

 by catalogues of the British animals belonging to one or more of 

 the Invertebrate Classes, particularly the Testaceous Mollusca, and 

 the Zoophytes. 



I cannot, perhaps, adduce more strong and unanswerable argu- 

 ments for the distribution of the Amphibia into a distinct Class, 

 than those which Dhere has brought forward, on the authority of 

 Blainville, in support and vindication of this view of the subject. 

 I shall, therefore, take the liberty of almost literally transcribing 

 the paragraph in which those arguments are exposed : — " In sepa- 

 rating the Amphibia from the Reptiles, we follow," says Dhere, 

 " the classification of M. de Blainville ; who considers them as a 

 distinct Class, connecting the Reptiles with the Fishes. In fact, 

 the skeleton, of a more mucous and less calcareous nature than that 

 of Reptiles, the articulation of the head by two condyles, the naked 

 and viscous condition of the skin, the absence of claws and of ribs, 

 or the existence of the latter in a merely rudimentary form, the 

 respiration at first branchial and afterwards pulmonary, the defect 

 of an organe excitateur in the male, and fecundation without copu- 

 lation, the peculiar envelope of the ova, and the metamorphoses 

 which the animals in question exhibit in their progress from the 

 ovum to the adult state, constitute characters sufficiently numerous 

 and important to justify this separation ; and, moreover, to prove 

 that the Amphibia can never conform to the generalities exhibited 

 by the Reptiles/'t 



In the construction of this Catalogue, I shall rely, with some few 

 exceptions which my own observation and experience may seem to 

 justify, on the works of Fleming and Jenyns, with respect to the 

 Reptiles and Amphibia, and of Yarrell, as regards the Fishes. Nor 

 is it my intention to attempt, in imitation of my very able and en- 

 terprising predecessor, any sweeping plans of reform in the arrange- 



• See vol. iii., page 197 ; and vol. iv., page 07. 



f Dhere', De la Nutrition dans la Serie des Animaux, page 57. 



