673 



SARSAPARILLA. 



SAURIA. 



674 



North America. Of their properties we know but little; they are 

 chiefly interesting on account of their pitcher-like leaves, which are 

 capable of holding water, and are thus said to furnish drink to wild 

 animals in their native forests during periods of drought The 

 pitchers frequently contain the dead bodies of flies and other insects, 

 which become putrid and produce an unpleasant smell around the 

 plant, but are said to afford to the plant a source of nutrition. 



SARSAPARILLA. [SMILAX.] 



SASSAFRAS, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 Lauracece. This is one of the genera into which the old genus Laurus 

 of Linnaeus has been divided by Nees von Esenbeck and other 

 botanists. It is known by its dioecious flowers, 6-parted membranous 

 calyx, with equal segments permanent at the base. The barren flowers 

 have 9 stamens in 3 rows, the 3 inner with double-stalked glands at 

 the base ; the anthers linear, 4-celled, with their faces turned inwards. 

 The fertile flowers have sterile stamens, which are fewer than or as 

 many as in the barren flowers. The fruit is succulent, placed on the 

 thick fleshy apex of the peduncle, and seated in the torn unchanged 

 calyx. The leaves are deciduous. Flowers yellow. The species of 

 this genus most known is the .S'. officinale, the Sassafras Laurel, on 

 account of its medicinal virtues. It is an inhabitant of the woods of 

 North America, from Canada to Florida. It is mostly a small tree or 

 bush, but sometimes attains the height of 40 or 50 feet. Its flowers 

 are arranged in naked downy racemes, which open before the leaves 

 appear, and are furnished with subulate deciduous bracts. The leaves 

 are membranous, bright green, smooth above, finely downy beneath, 

 very variable in form, and tapering in a wedge-like manner into the 

 petiole. The fruit is of a bright blue colour, as large as a small 

 cherry, and seated upon red clavate peduncles. In America the 

 Sassafras is divided into two varieties, the red and white. Its great 

 use is for medicinal purposes. It is however employed in America 

 for making bedsteads and other articles of furniture, which are 

 not liable to the attacks of insects, and give out a very agreeable 

 odour. 



X, Partheno.rylon is a lofty timber-tree growing in the forests of 

 Sumatra. The bark is rough and brown. Leaves alternate, rather 

 long, petioled, ovate, acute, often acuminate and varying in breadth, 

 about 3 inches long, entire, with somewhat revolute edges, smooth, 

 glaucous beneath ; nerves lateral and irregularly alternate. The fruit 

 has a strong balsamic smell, and yields an oil, considered useful in 

 rheumatic affections. An infusion of the root is used in medicine. 



SASSOLIN. [BORON.] 



SATIN-BIRD. [COEVIDJJ.] 



SATURNIA, a genus of Insects belonging to the order Lepidoptera 

 and the family Bombycida. The antennas are fringed in the male ; 

 the head ia small ; the wings are very broad and entire ; the palpi and 

 trunk are wanting. 



S. Pavonia minor, the Emperor Moth, is one of the handsomest of 

 the British species of Moths. It is about 3 inches wide. The colour 

 is grayish-brown, faintly tinged with purple ; the binder margin of all 

 the wings has a band of pale brown and purple, the hinder band being 

 much waved. The centre of each wing has a large spot or ocellus, 

 which is placed on a light ground ; it consists of a black pupil, with a 

 yellow or gray iris, and partly surrounded by a light blue crescent. 

 The larva is of a green colour, having a black band on each segment 

 adorned with pink tubercles, bearing a whorl of six hairs diverging 

 like a star. It constructs a curious cocoon, the extremity not being 

 close, but terminated by a converging circle of very stiff hairs, which 

 enables the insect to make its escape from within, but completely 

 prevents all ingress. 



To the genus Satarnia some of the largest of the Lepidoptera 

 belong. K. Atlas, the Giant Atlas Moth, has wings measuring 7 or 8 

 inches across. This species also, with .S'. Cecropia and .S'. Luna, have 

 their wings produced into a tail. The cocoons of ft. Cynthia and 

 S. Mylitta are used in India for the production of silk. Latreille 

 states that these are the wild species of silk-worm of China. .S'. Cynthia 

 is the Arrindi Silk- Worm of India. (Roxburgh, 'Linn. Trans.,' voL vii.) 

 S. Promethea, a North American species, forms its cocoon within the 

 leaf of a sassafras-tree, having previously fastened the stalk of the 

 leaf to the stem by a strong silken web, whereby it is prevented from 

 falling with the other leaves. (Westwood.) 



SAUCE-ALONE. [ERTSIMUM.] 



SAURIA (aavpos, or ffavpa, a lizard), the term by which the great 

 family of Lizards is generally designated. The animal forms more 

 strictly included under it are those comprised under the genera Lacerla 

 (after deducting the Croeodilians and the Salamanders) and Draco of 

 Linnaeus. 



To these, Cuvier observes, the family Anguil might even be joined, 

 because their osteology, especially that of the head, resembles the 

 osseous structure of many of the Lizards. 



In the large acceptation of the term Saurians, the Pterodactyles, 

 Enalingaurians, and Crocodiles are included. 



The general relations of this order will be found under the article 

 REPTILES. We shall here refer to their general structure and organi- 

 sation, and to their classification. 



If we take the living forms collected under the above-mentioned 

 genera of Linnsus, after eliminating from the genus Lacerta the groups 

 above excepted, wo shall find that all the animals have a similar 



HAT. IIIW. DIV. VOL. IV. 



structure of the skull, of the shoulder-blade, and of the os hyoides, 

 or that they exhibit but slight variations in the composition and pro- 

 portion of the parts, whilst they differ considerably from the Crocodiles 

 and Tortoises, and still more from the Salamanders, as Cuvier, with his 

 usual acuteness, has observed. 



With regard to the structure of the os hyoides, Cuvier remarks, 

 that it becomes important in proportion as we approach the Fishes ; 

 and he observes that in man it is composed of five parts : namely, a 

 body in the form of a flattened transversal arch ; two anterior and 

 very long horns, which proceed to attach themselves to the temporal 

 bone below the meatus auditorius, and of which the upper part is 

 there soldered at a very early period, and takes the name of the 

 styloid process of the temporal bone ; whilst the lower part, for a 

 long time simply ligameutous, has below, at the point of junction 

 with the body, an osseous grain (cornu minus) ; and, finally, two pos- 

 terior bony cornua (cornua majora) supporting the larynx by means of 

 a ligament which attaches to them the thyroid cartilage. 



The numerous variations which this bone of the tongue presents in 

 the class Mammalia, depend on the form of its body, on the more or 

 less prompt soldering which takes place with the posterior cornua, and 

 on the form and the proportion of the pieces of the anterior cornua. 

 Very often in the Ruminants, the Solipedes, and the Cetaceans, the 

 body takes, in becoming soldered to the posterior cornua, the shape 

 of a crescent ; and it often happens also, especially in the two first 

 families, that it produces anteriorly a more or less long apophysis ; 

 but the anterior horns are always suspended to the cranium, and nearly 

 without exception to a small apophysis of the os petrosum and to the 

 neighbouring part of the tympanic cavity. 



This suspension does not take place in those birds in which the 

 anterior horns run round the back of the cranium [PICID.E ; THO- 

 CHILID^B], and are only there attached by muscles and cellular 

 substance. 



The body of the tongue-bone is most frequently of a rhoniboidal 

 form. To its posterior part is articulated or soldered a slender 

 unequal bone on which the larynx reposes, and which singly repre- 

 sents the two posterior cornua ; and to its anterior part another bone, 

 sometimes double, which penetrates into the tongue, and which Cuvier 

 names the lingual bone. The anterior horns consist generally of only 

 two .pieces. 



With regard to the diversities of this bone in the different families, 

 he remarks that in the Saurians it continues with little change to the 

 Ophwauri, the Orvets (Anguis), and the Amphisbcence. In the two 

 former the anterior horn is nearly reduced to a membranous state ; 

 but the posterior one is well ossified. In the Amphwbienae the second 

 articulation of the anterior horn is reduced to a simple vestige. 

 There is none in the third horn. The os hyoides in the true serpents 

 is reduced to two long cartilaginous filaments, which only sustain for- 

 wards, as the sole vestige of the body, a species of membrane, hardly 

 discernible in those which are not very large. 



The teeth in the true Saurians are not placed in sockets, nor are 

 those which are to replace the teeth which are lost or shed produced 

 in the cavities of the old teeth ; but the gelatinous germs of the teeth 

 adhere to the internal surface of the dental bone without having any 

 bony partitions between them, and sometimes without being guarded 

 on the internal side by a lamina of that bone : in the latter case their 

 bases are only separated from the cavity of the mouth by the gum. 

 The base is not divided into roots ; but when the tooth grows the 

 same phenomenon is manifested as is seen in fishes. The gelatinous 

 nucleus becomes ossified ; it unites itself intimately on one side to the 

 bone of the jaw, whilst it contracts on the other an intimate adherence 

 with the tooth which it has exuded ; the tooth then appears like a 

 prominence, an apophysis of the jaw, only it is covered with enamel, 

 whilbi its base is naked and purely osseous, and around this base are 

 to be seen stria: and little pores by which the vessels have penetrated 

 or still penetrate into its internal cavity, and which also mark the spot 

 where the rupture will take place when this tooth must yield up its 

 place. The new teeth spring not in the cavity of the old ones, as in 

 the crocodile, but near the internal surface of their base, or in certain 

 species in the thickness of the bone above or below the base according 

 to the jaw. 



Professor Owen, in his valuable chapter on the ' Teeth of Saurians ' 

 (' Odontography,' pt. ii., p. 234, et seq.), commences his inquiry with 

 the Ophisaurians, observing that there are several genera of reptiles, 

 which, like the true snakes, are externally devoid of locomotive 

 extremities, or have them indicated only by minute rudiments, but 

 are covered by small uniform scales, and resemble the Saurians much 

 more than the Ophidians in their anatomical structure, especially in 

 the fixed condition of the jaws, which cannot be divaricated laterally, 

 or rotated backwards and forwards upon a moveable tympanic pedicle. 

 These Snake-Lizards, he observes, have always intermaxillary as well 

 as maxillary teeth. 



In the Amphisbamians, Professor Owen remarks that there are both 

 pleurodont and acrodont species, as in the true Saurians ; but tho 

 pleurodonts are the most numerous, and have their teeth applied 

 against the internal surface of an external alveolar wall. In Trogon- 

 ophil however the teeth are blended by their whole base with the 

 alveolar ridge, are so closely approximated that they cohere, and are 

 unequal, conical, subcompressed, and obtuse. The intermaiilla t 



