HISTORY OF OPHIOLOGY. 119 



cessors have taken care to make extracts from him in tlieir 

 works. 



Of all the figures which have appeared to this day on 

 the natural history of animals, those which are found in 

 the Grand Work on Egypt are beyond dispute the most 

 perfect, for the fidelity with which the subjects are repre- 

 rented. The explanatory text of these plates has only 

 been recently pul3lished, and still only comprehends the 

 first part ; the objects represented in the supplement by 

 Savigny having been lost. 



A novel classification of reptiles, at first inserted in the 

 Annals of Natural Sciences, has been separately published 

 at Munich in 1811. The author, the late M. Oppel, dif- 

 fers much from his predecessors. In adopting the four 

 orders established by Brongniart, he has introduced 

 numerous modifications ; as in reuniting the Saurians and 

 Ophidians, as subdivisions of his order Squamata ; in ar - 

 ranging the Anguis among the Saurians, and placing, 

 according to the remarks of M. Dumeril, the Csecilia in 

 the order of Batrachians. This system, more natural by 

 its connection than any other published, has only been 

 appreciated in our days. We owe to the late Oppel the 

 establishment of several very natural genera, such as Tor- 

 trix, Trigonocephalus, Vipera, &c. ; but he has introduced 

 confusion into the system by reuniting the Bungarus under 

 the general denomination of Pseudo-Boa, while he applies 

 the first name to the Dipsas. The seven families which he 

 has created for the subdivision of Ophidians, are founded 

 on too small a number of observations to be useful at this 

 time of day. Some are even very little natural ; for exam- 

 ple, that of Pseudo- Vipera, comprehending the genera 

 Acrochordus and Herpeton ; and the Viperinae, in which 

 the Vipera, Bungarus, and Naja, &c. are united. 



I now arrive at the labours of Cuvier on Serpents. 

 Founded on observations first inserted in his Comparative 

 Anatomy, this illustrious philosopher published, in 1817, 

 a classification of serpents* of which we shall give a sketch : 

 it was reproduced in a second edition, and has undergone 



* Regne Animal, vol. ii. ed. 21e. 



