INDIAN SNAKE-CHARMER. 

 (From a Sketch by a Native Artist.) 



REPTILES AND SNAKE-STONES. 



Reptiles, in zoology, as interpreted forty years ago, 

 constituted a Class of vertebrate animals (that is 

 animals with a backbone) intermediate between birds 

 and fishes, having a greater affinity with the latter 

 than the former. They were generally described in 

 scientific works as having cold blood, being the 

 possessors of a heart with sometimes one and some- 

 times two auricles, but with only one ventricle ; so 

 that, at most, there are but three chambers in their 



