HISTORY OF OPUIOLOGY. 125 



to describe or to enumerate the ophidians of a particular 

 country, or at least to collect materials for the faunas of differ- 

 ent regions of the globe. Besides the grand works already 

 mentioned on the East Indies, Brazil, North America, and 

 Egypt, the Monograph of the Serpents of the environs of 

 Rome by Metaxa is particularly distinguished ; those of 

 Hungary, published by Frivaldszky ; of Switzerland, by 

 Wyder ; of Lithuania, by Drumpelmann ; of Italy, by the 

 Prince ofMusiGNANO ; of Germany by Sturm; of Holland, 

 by Van Lier ; and of North America, by Harlan ; many 

 philosophers, as Wolf, Meissner, Wagner, Boie,Vosmaer, 

 Fleischman, Boddaert, Gronovius, Bell, Gray, Lich- 

 tenstein, Brandt, and Batzeburg, and some others, have 

 published detached observations on the nature of snakes, 

 which have extended the boundaries of our knowledge, by 

 the descriptions they have given of new species. 



It is also proper to notice the labours by which anato- 

 mists and physiologists have, especially in later times, 

 illustrated ophiology. The fine and numerous experiments 

 on the poison of the Viper, by Redi, Charas, and especially 

 by Fontana, and the description which those philosophers 

 have given of the poisonous apparatus, are worthy of the 

 attention of the naturalists of every period. Celebrated 

 anatomists such as Cuvier, and Meckel, have, in their 

 Manuals on Zootomy, demonstrated the organization of 

 serpents ; others, such as Cloquet, Duvernoy, Mayer, 



TiEDEMANN, ScHLEMM, WiNDISCHMANN, J. MiiLLER, &c., 



have furnished interesting dissertations on the various 

 organs of those animals ; M. Herholdt has made researches 

 on the physiology of our indigenous species. A crowd of 

 other observers, in fine, whose names I shall quote in their 

 proper place, have contributed to extend our knowledge of 

 the natural history of serpents. 



