NATURAL HISTORY. 



REPTILES. 



The subjects of the present volume have been 

 viewed in all countries and ages, with less of 

 popular favour than other Classes of animals. 

 Few of them are of the slightest use to man, 

 either alive or dead ; many of them are fatally 

 poisonous, and others are terrible from their 

 power and ferocity. The forms of some con- 

 sist little with our ideas of beauty ; and per- 

 haps the coldness of their bodies when touched, 

 the concealed situations which many of them 

 inhabit, and the crawling motion generally ob- 

 served in this Class, have also contributed to the 

 suspicion and dislike with which they are com- 

 monly regarded. But when we discard prejudice, 

 we find that the great majority of these animals 

 are perfectly inoffensive ; that many are clad in 

 mail of the most brilliant polish, unsullied with 

 spot or stain ; that others are arrayed in rich and 

 tastefully arranged colours ; and that all afford, in 

 the perfection of their structure, the skill and 

 power displayed in the different contrivances of 



B 



