VERTEBRA OF SERPENTS. 89 



bones, often supporting a second bone, armed with a claw, 

 are found suspended on the flesh near the vent. The ex- 

 posed parts of these appendages are called " anal hooks ;" 

 the parts themselves, like the similarly suspended ventral 

 fins of the pike, are rudiments of hind limbs. 



Serpents have been regarded as animals degraded from 

 a higher type ; but their whole organization, and especially 

 their bony structure, demonstrate that their parts are 

 as exquisitely adjusted to the form of their whole, and to 

 their habits and sphere of life, as is the organization of 

 any animal which we call superior to them. It is true 

 that the serpent has no limbs, yet it can outclimb the 

 monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the jerboa, and, sud- 

 denly loosing the close coils of its crouching spiral, it 

 can spring into the air and seize the bird upon the wing: 

 all these creatures have been observed to fall its prey. 

 The serpent has neither hands nor talons, yet it can out- 

 wrestle the athlete and crush the tiger in the embrace of 

 its ponderous overlapping folds. Instead of licking up 

 its food as it glides along, the serpent uplifts its crushed 

 prey, and presents it, grasped in the death-coil as in a 

 hand, to its slimy gaping mouth. 



It is truly wonderful to see the work of hands, feet, 

 and fins performed by a modification of the vertebral 

 column — by a multiplication of its segments with mobility 

 of its ribs. But the vertebrse are specially modified, as 

 we have seen, to compensate, by the strength of their 

 numerous articulations, for the weakness of their mani- 

 fold repetition, and the consequent elongation of the 

 slender column. As serpents move chiefly on the surface 

 of the earth, their danger is greatest from pressure and 

 blows from above ; all the joints are fashioned accordingly 

 to resist yielding, and sustain pressure in a vertical direc- 



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