2518 



SCALED REPTILES 



sundered from one another, as are worms and amphisbsenas. Fossil members of 

 the family have been discovered in the Tertiary rocks of North America. 



The one member of the family which exhibits evidence of its re- 

 . . lationship to less specialized lizards in the retention of rudimentary 

 baena fore-limbs is the handed amphisbsena (Chirotes caniculatus) of Mexico 



and California; this being one of the two species found on the con- 

 tinent of America to the north of the Tropic of Cancer. This creature, which at- 

 tains a length of about seven inches, and is of a brownish flesh color, is distin- 

 guished by the presence of a pair of small depressed fore-limbs, placed close to the 

 head, to which they are about equal in length; each of these being provided with 

 four well-developed and clawed toes, of which the outermost is the shortest. 





Typical 



SPOTTED AMPHISB^NA. 



(Two-fifths natural size.) 



The typical members of the family constitute a genus {Amphisbcena) 



common to tropical America and Africa, and represented by nearly 

 Ampnis- 

 bzenas thirty species. Belonging, like the last genus, to the group in which 



the teeth are attached to the inner edges of the jaws, these limbless 

 amphisbsenas are specially characterized by the antei ior body rings not being en- 

 larged, by the laterally placed nostrils being pierced in a special nasal shield, by the 

 rounded or slightly compressed snout, the obtuse, cylindrical tail, and the presence 

 of pores in front of the vent. The figured species (A. fuliginosa) is a well-known 

 kind from tropical America and the West Indies, deriving its name -from its pied 

 skin, and attaining a length of about eighteen inches. Writing of the habits of a 

 member of the genus, Bates observes that their " peculiar form, added to their habit 

 of wriggling backward as well as forward, has given rise to the fable that they have 

 two heads, one at each extremity. They are extremely sluggish in their motions, 

 and live habitually in the subterranean chambers of the sauba ant; only coming out 

 of their abodes occasionally in the nighttime. The natives call the amphisbaena 

 the mat das saubas, or mother of the saubas, and believe it to be poisonous, al- 

 though it is perfectly harmless. It is one of the many curious animals which have 

 become the subject of mythical stories with the natives. They say the ants treat it 



