ClIAP. I. 



CHARACTERS OF THE ORDER. 



253 



constant, that even the uninitiated will recognize a Turtle as a Turtle, as readily 

 as they will know a Bird to be a Bird.' It is not so with the other orders of 

 Reptiles, the Snakes and Lizards. It is certainly easy to recognize in a Rattle- 

 snake and a Leguan two entirely different animals, but it needs a scientific inves- 

 tigation, and indeed a very accurate one, to distinguish the Rhinophis as a Snake, 

 from the Anguis or Ophisaurus as a Lizard ; indeed, in English, the Ophisaurus is 

 commonly called a Snake, the Glass-Snake. All Turtles, on the contrary, are dis- 

 tinctly comprised by all civilized languages under one name. What, then, is this 

 something which so forcibly strikes the eye of the unlearned, and is so graphically 

 expressed by the familiar names of these animals ? It is the stiff" backbone, spreading 

 into the shape of a shield: Schild-kWite, (M'rman, shield-toad; turtle, Saxon, perhaps 

 from tart or tartsche, the shield of the old Germanic tribes ; testiido, in Latin. 



Let us now consider, from this point of view, the remaining orders of the Rep- 

 tiles, the Serpents and Saurians, and we shall see what deep truth is hinted at by 

 this name of " Schild-krote." The Snake moves only by means of the lateral motions 

 of its vertebral column, together with the ribs ; the Turtle only by means of its feet ; 

 and the Lizard, which stands between the two, by means of both together. We 

 have a gradual series from the Apodes, or footless Reptiles, which creep upon the 

 stomach, the Snakes, through the Lizards, up to the highest Reptiles, namely, the 

 terrestrial Turtles, which stand upon four supports ; and, to gain a true insight into 

 the characters of the order of Testudinata, it is important to trace this series 

 through its successive links. In so doing, we find the Pythons moving like all 

 other serpents by means of horizontal undulations of the vertebral column, and the 

 pressure of the ribs attached to it But the anatomist finds, concealed under their 

 anal scales, traces of hind feet, and even of the pelvis. These rudiments of limbs 

 have as yet no locomotive function, but they hint at what is afterwards to appear in 

 the higher types of the same class. The lowest Lizards, (and every zoologist con- 

 siders as such the family of Glass-Snakes, Scincoidoe,) begin with the European 

 Anguis, in which traces of hind feet are concealed under the skin, but the only real 



' Siin])le and trivial as this staloraent may seem, 

 it involves a principle which neitiicr naturalists nor 

 general observers appear yet fully to understand, 

 naini'lv, lliat natural f^roups are not necessarily 

 equally distinct, and that groups which seem equally 

 distinct are not necessarily of the same value. Ko 

 higher {iroup in the animal kingdom is more clearly 

 dcducd than the class of Hinls, witii piTlia|)s the sole 

 exception of the Turtles; hut then Turtles constitute 

 only an order in the class of Keptiles, and not a chiss 



for themselves ; while the Reptiles as a class by no 

 means present that uniformity of appearance so char- 

 acteristic of the Birds. What is true of these two 

 types wiliiiu lluir limits is ecpially true of hundreds 

 of other t3pes within other limits, iluch of the 

 uncertainty perceptible in our dassiticiitions, from the 

 highest divisions down to the limitation of tlie species, 

 arises from a constaut neglect of the universal in- 

 equality whicli pervades both the animal and the 

 vegetable kingdoms. 



