SYNOPTIC CATALOGUE 
OF 
REPTILES. 
Order II. SNAKES (OPHIDIA). 
Mouth dilatable, all the facial bones moveable. Jaws toothed: 
lower jaw-bones only united by ligaments in front. Eyes without 
eyelids. External ears none. Tongue very long, retractile into a 
sheath at its base; the apex forked, very long, slender, tapering. 
Limbs none or only rudimentary, in the form of spurs on the side of 
the vent. (See Meyer, Acta Acad. Nat. Cur. xii.) The body of each 
vertebra articulated by a convex facet, fitting into a concavity in 
the front of the following one. The palatine arches mobile and 
armed with acute recurved teeth. The windpipe is very long. One 
of the lungs very large; the other very small or rudimentary. The 
heart in the hinder part of the body. The mastoid bone is detached 
in all except the genus Jortrix of Oppell. 
Ophidia, Rafin. Anal. Nat. 76,1815. Ophidii pars, Oppeld, 
Rept.47. Ophidii, Gray, Ann. Phil. 1825, 204. Serpents propre- 
ment dit, Cuvier, R. A. ii. 60; ed. 2,ii.7,74. Serpentia gulones, 
Merrem, Tent. 81. Ophidi, § 2, Bibron. Serpentes Theciglossi, 
Wagler, Syst. Amph. 165. 
B 
