DENTITION. 353 



During the two hundred years that have witnessed the 

 development of natural history into a science, many and 

 various have been the methods of zoological and particularly 

 of ophiological classification, A few of these methods are 

 sketched out in chap. ii. It will be seen 'that the cha- 

 racter of the teeth had not for a long while much weight 

 in classifying snakes. According to Schlegel, Klein in 1755 

 was the first to separate the venomous from the non-venom- 

 ous snakes in classification. But after him Linnaeus, then 

 the greatest naturalist of modern times, distinguished snakes 

 chiefly by the form of the ventral and sub-caudal plates ; 

 so that in the six genera which he established {AmphisbcBua, 

 Cecilia, Crotaliis, Boa, Coluber ^ and Anguis), rattlesnakes and 

 boas, colubers and vipers, with others of the most opposite 

 characters, were jumbled up together; and the little burrowing 

 blindworm and the venomous sea snakes were^ supposed 

 to be related, because they neither of them had ventral 

 scales ! On account of his vast researches and great 

 reputation, subsequent naturalists were slow to entirely 

 overthrow his system and to venture on reforms of their 

 own, and our cyclopedias are suffering to the present day 

 from the confusion of the various methods of classification 

 adopted by so many naturalists, as a few quotations 

 presently will show. Dandin, 1802, though his work was 

 reckoned by Schlegel the most complete up to his time, 

 comprehended all the venomous snakes under the head of 

 ' vipers.' Cuvier divided the vipers (with crochets mobiles) 

 from those with fixed fangs ; but yet was unsound in many 

 other respects, confounding the Elapidcs with the Viperidc^^ 

 although he professed to separate them. Another confusion 



