HISTORY OF OPHIOLOGY. 117 



1." 



brated Bechstein. This philosopher, unskilled in that 

 branch of science, has drawn together, in this translation, 

 all that was known in his time on Reptiles, and has caused 

 to be engraved a gi'eat number of the figures of Seba, of 

 Russell, of Merrem, and others ; I have occasionally 

 quoted this compilation, in which Bechstein has introduced 

 some very good original observations on the indigenous 

 Ophidians. 



The classification of reptiles proposed in 1799 by M. 

 Alex. Brongniart, is founded on their general organiza- 

 tion, and rests on principles too solid not to have been 

 adopted by naturalists. It is to this savant that we are 

 indebted for the introduction of the four orders now gene- 

 rally recognised ; but as he defines Ophidians to be animals 

 without feet, mth the body enlongated, and cylindrical, it is 

 obvious that the Anguis and Csecilia are not excluded from 

 that order. Brongniart has further introduced the genera 

 adopted by Lacepede, and augmented it by the addition of 

 the genus Vipera, which comprehends many venomous 

 snakes. 



Schneider, treating the natural sciences as a man of 

 letters, has created the genera Hydrus, Pseudo-Boa, and 

 Elaps, to class in them serpents of very heterogeneous 

 kinds. We see figuring in the first, by the side of the true 

 Hydrophis, the Acrochordus, and the Tropidonotus, while 

 the two last genera present a confused medley of snakes 

 very different from each other. 



It is difficult to comprehend why Latreille has pre- 

 ferred to the classification of Brongniart a method analo- 

 gous to that of Lacepede. In glancing over the work 

 which he has published, and which is ornamented with pretty 

 figures in miniature, but without any scientific interest, one 

 perceives that this learned entomologist, in the composition 

 of his work, has almost exclusively employed the materials 

 furnished by Seba and Lacepede, and also some remarks 

 supplied by travellers. He has, however, extended the 

 list of his genera, by creating those of Scytale, Heterodon, 

 Platurus, Hydrophis, Enhydrus, and in establishing sub- 

 divisions in those of Coluber and Vipera. 



The second part of the third volume of the General 



