THE AMPHISB^ENAS 



2517 



less rudimental. The eyes are concealed beneath the skin; the mouth is small, and 

 frequently inferior in position, and the ear is completely wanting. Although the 

 head is covered with large symmetrical shields, the skin of the body is divided into 

 squared segments forming regular rings, like those of worms; from which charac- 

 teristic the group is sometimes spoken of as the ringed lizards. In all the tail is 

 short. The large teeth are few in number, and fixed either to the inner or upper 

 edges of the jaws. 



The amphisbaenas, which are arranged in eleven genera, including between 

 sixty and seventy species, are most numerously represented in America south of 

 the Tropic of Cancer, although also occurring in the West Indies, while Africa 

 possesses over twenty species, and four are found in the Mediterranean area. Of 



HANDED AMPHISB^NA. 



(Natural size.) 



their habits, Mr. Boulenger observes that all the members of this family are bur- 

 rowers, and may live in ants' nests. They bore narrow galleries in the earth, in 

 which they are able to progress backward as well as forward. On the ground they 

 progress in a straight line by slight vertical undulations, not by lateral movements, 

 as in other limbless reptiles; and the tail of many species appears to be more or less 

 prehensile. The food of these lizards consists of small insects and worms. As re- 

 gards their breeding habits, it is only known that one species lays eggs, which are 

 deposited in ants' nests. The marked resemblance of these lizards to earth worms 

 is a most curious instance of the similarity produced in the external form of 

 different groups of animals by adaptation to similar modes of life; the remarkable 

 feature in this case being the occurrence of this resemblance in creatures so widely 



