814 



REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENTS REPTILES. 



of TesdM-n. In 17S9, in- commanded the army of 

 the Ukraine, mul formed the blockade of Ismail, 

 afterwards taken by Suwarrow. In July. 1791, he 

 defeated the grand-rizier Yussuf. He was after- 

 wards governor of Livonia. After the last parti- 

 tion ot Poland, he received the government of 

 Lithuania, and subsequently served under Suwar- 

 row. Paul I., in 1 ;<>(!, made him a field-mar- 

 .-lial, and, in 17'iS. sent him on a secret mission to 

 Berlin. He died in May, 1801. 



KKPRKSKNTA HVE GOVERNMENTS. (See 

 the article Constitution). The history of represen- 

 tative governments has not yet been written, 

 though tew works would be of more interest to the 

 times in which we live, than one in which the 

 various manifestations of the representive principle 

 should be traced from the conquering military 

 republics, erected on the ruins of the Roman em- 

 pire, through the aristocratic institutions of the 

 middle ages, down to the present democratic age, 

 and in which it should be shown how all the 

 brandies of civil, and many of ecclesiastical, govern- 

 ment, were originally blended, and gradually ac- 

 quired more distinctness and purity ; how the re- 

 presentative principle expanded in England more 

 quickly than in the rest of Europe, and its demo- 

 cratic part, being transplanted to another hemis- 

 phere, branched forth with new vigour. 



REPRODUCTION. See Microscopical Animals. 



REPTILES. This department of animated 

 beings forming the third class of vertebrate animals, 

 according to the arrangement of Cuvier, has occu- 

 pied various situations in the classification of 

 authors. Many of this species were known to the 

 ancients. Pliny, in his Historia Naturalis, has 

 given all the information, respecting those that 

 were known during his time, which was, however, 

 extremely limited, in comparison to what is our 

 present stock of knowledge. The first of the 

 moderns who increased our knowledge respecting 

 the- lieptilia was Aldrovandus, a Bohemian noble- 

 man, and a professor of the university of Bologna ; 

 he published the first volume of his Natural History 

 in folio, in the year 1599, which was continued by 

 his successors, and completed in fourteen volumes, 

 in the year 1640. Gesner, a physician of Zurich, 

 was the next who took up this subject ; he pub- 

 lished a work entitled a History of Animals, in 

 three volumes folio, which appeared in 1620. To 

 this work he added a treatise on Serpents. He 

 was followed by Topsel, a British author, who pub- 

 lished a History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents 

 in folio, 1518. These several works contain much 

 curious information respecting reptiles, but so mixed 

 up with fable, and the romance of travellers, that 

 the accounts are not to be depended upon, and it is 

 difficult to separate the pure matter from the dross. 

 The animals of this class have in all ages furnished 

 matter for fiction, from the dangerous qualities of 

 many of the species, or the disgusting forms and 

 frightful appearance of others. We are told that 

 the march of the army of Attilius Regulus was 

 arrested by the power of an African serpent, 120 

 feet long ; and the Basilisk was said to possess the 

 power of killing any person who looked at it,.with 

 a glance from its eyes. 



But it was not until the publication of the Sy- 

 nopsit Methodica Animalium, Quadrupedum et 

 Serpentini generit, in the year 1093, by Ray, that 

 we had any distinct classification of reptiles 

 which was worthy of attention. His arrangement 

 consists of three orders ; first, oviparous animals, 

 witli red Mood, which respire by means of lungs, 

 iii'il which liave a heart consisting of one ventricle. 

 This order includes frogs, divided into aquatic and 



terrestrial, toads, and tortoises. Second, Lizards, 

 and their congeners, including the saurinns of 

 Cuvier; and third, Serpents, or the ophidians of 

 Cuvier. 



The next systematic writer who followed Ray 

 wns Linnaeus, who arranged this class of animal* 

 under the title of Amphibia in his Systema Natures/ 

 these he divided into three orders; namely, Rep- 

 tilia. Serpents, and Nantes, which last most impro- 

 perly included the cartilaginous fishes ; these were 

 removed to their proper station by Gmelin, who 

 published an edition of the Systema Naturae, with 

 additions, in the year 1758. Linnaeus was followed 

 by Klein, who, in 1755, published his Tentamen 

 Erpetologice, in which he arranged serpents into two 

 orders ; first, those whose heads are distinct from 

 the body, with an elongated tail ; and second, those, 

 with the head not distinctly developed from the 

 body, and provided with an obtuse tail. 



The next author was Laurentini, a physician of 

 Vienna, who published his Specimen Medicum 

 exhibens Synopsin Reptilium emendatam, in 17<<^, 

 in which he divides them into three orders ; namely, 



1. Leapers, including frogs and their congeners; 



2. Walkers, such as lizards; 3. Serpents. But 

 this author entirely omitted tortoises in his classifi- 

 cation. 



The naturalist whose works are next worthy of 

 notice, is Lacepede, who in 1798 1800, pu!>- 

 lished his Histoire Naturelle, General et Parti- 

 culiere des Quadrupedes ovipares et des Serpentes, 

 intended as a continuation of the Histoire Naturelle 

 of Buffon. His classification differs but little from 

 that of Linnaeus, but contains a great mass of new 

 and interesting matter, and he gives more accurate 

 details, and more precise generic distinctions 

 than that author. 



We now come to Brongniart, whose classifica- 

 tion of reptiles far outstripped all those who 

 preceded him. In 1799, he first made known his 

 arrangements, which was published in 1805, under 

 the title of Essai d'une Classification Naturelle des 

 Reptiles. This has superseded all other arrange- 

 ments, and has been followed by Cuvier in his 

 Regne Animal. His orders are constructed upon 

 their organization, such as generation and respira- 

 tion, together with the exercise of the animal func- 

 tions, such as touch, digestion, and locomotion. 

 Founded upon these, he divides the class Reptiles 

 into four orders; viz. 1. Chelonians, in which the 

 body is covered with a shield or plate, compre- 

 hending the turtles and tortoises. 2. Saurians, 

 having the body covered with scales, including 

 crocodiles, and their congeners. 3. Ophidians, 

 destitute of feet, such as serpents. Batrachians, 

 whose bodies are covered with a naked skin ; 

 exemplified in frogs, &c. 



In the Histoire Naturelle des Reptiles of La- 

 treille, published in Deterville's edition of the His- 

 toire Naturelle of Buffon, as also in his Families 

 Naturelles du Regne Animal, published in 1825, 

 lie has attempted some trivial changes on the clas- 

 sification of Brongniart ; retaining, however, all 

 the principal features of his arrangement un- 

 touched. 



Dume'ril, in his Elemens des Sciences Naturelles, 

 has also made some changes; but these are unim- 

 portant. 



Daudin published his Histoire Naturelle des 

 Reptiles, in eight volumes 8vo., at Paris in 1802 

 1803. In this elaborate work much curious infor- 

 mation is brought forward, and many particular 

 facts, which were before unknown ; but in his 

 arrangement he has followed Brongniart, with 

 some slight modification in the genera. 



