Hi ox THE niYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



which it contains are, for the most part, passable ; but many 

 among them are given with very little accuracy. 



A considerable number of figures of serpents, very re- 

 cognisable, are to be found in the Museum of Prince Adol- 

 PHUs Frederic, pu])lished by Linnaeus, which appeared 

 before the last editions of the Sy sterna NaturcE. The author 

 himself quotes a second volume of this work, in which he 

 has been followed by his successors, although that volume 

 never was published. To this great man, the inventor of 

 the Dicliotomic method, we owe the first sketch of a true 

 classification of Opliidians :* these animals formed his se- 

 cond tribe of the order of Reptiles, which lie thus character- 

 izes, " Seiycntcs, apodes, spirantes orey The six genera 

 established by him are founded on characters taken from 

 the organization of the general integmnents. If we take 

 away the genera Amphisb«?na and Cfecilia, wdiich make a 

 part of the Linna3an family of Opliidians, there remain only 

 the Crotalus, Boa, Coluber, and Anguis, distinguished by 

 the form of the plates below the body. The first genus 

 comprehends all those serpents which have the tail provided 

 with the noise-making apparatus, know^n under the desig- 

 nation of the rattle ; the Boa is distinguished from the 

 Coluber by entire subcaudal plates ; the Anguis has below 

 plates similar to the scales on other parts of its body. It 

 is obvious, that a method founded on characters, so fugitive 

 as those of which Lixn^eus availed himself for his system, 

 must contradict nature : thus all the natural affinities that 

 connect the different species of Ophidians are dissevered in 

 his species. We there see the Trigonocephalus by the side 

 of the Boa ; his genus Anguis includes at the same time 

 the Scinks, the TortrLx, the Typhlops, the Hydrophis, and 

 the Ophisaurus. The other serpents are referred to his 

 genus Coluber, in which are jumbled the Vipers, the Py- 

 thons, the Calamars, the Najas, the Homalopsis, the Dip- 

 sas, the Dryiophis, &c. &c. 



All the successors of Lixx^us having in some shape fol- 

 lowed his method, which they may be said merely to have 



* Syst. Naturae, Ed. xii. p. 347. 



