SERPENTS. «• 



ORDER III. 



OPHIDIA*.— SERPENTS. 



The Serpents are Reptiles without feet, and consequently those among 

 thera all which most deserve the title of Reptiles. Their extremely 

 elongated hody moves by means of the folds it forms when in contact with 

 the ground. They are divided into three families. 



FAMILY I. 



ANGUINAf. 



The Angues still have an osseous head, teeth, and tongue, similar to 

 those of a Seps; their eye is furnished with three lids, &c., and, in fact, 



neck, composed of a greater number of cervical vertebrae than is found in any other 

 animal known; its tail was short; some of its remains have also been found on the 

 continent. 



These two genera, for the possession of which we are chiefly indebted to the exer- 

 tions of M. Home, Conybeare, Buckland, &c., inhabited the sea. They form a very- 

 distinct family, but what is knowni of their osteology approximates them much more 

 closely to the common Saurians than to the Crocodiles, with which Fitzinger has 

 associated them in his family of the Louie ata; and so much the more gratuitously, 

 as neither their scales nor their tongue, the two characteristic parts of the Loricata, 

 are known. 



* From the Greek word ophis, (a serpent). 



t Anguis, the Latin generic term for Serpents. 



and the other gentlemen whose names are mentioned above, we are indebted for the 

 diescriptions of the two genera of fossil animals alluded to in the note — the Plesio- 

 aauriis and Icthtjo^aurus. They are supposed to have been oviparous, and to belong 

 to the family of the Saurians, but differing very essentially from all existing species, 

 and in such particulars as evidently must have fitted them to live entirely in the sea. 

 Their vertebrae are deeply cupped like those of fishes, and are as thin as those of the 

 shark, so as to admit of a vibratory motion of the tail, to assist progression. The 

 extremities terminate in four paddles, composed of a series of flat polygonal bones, 

 greatly exceeding in number even the phalangic cartilages of the fins of fishes. The 

 most wonderful animal of this division is the Plesiosaurus doliclwdelrus, or long- 

 necked Plesiosfturus; the neck of this animal is equal to half the entire length of the 

 body and tail united, and is composed of thirty-five vertebrae; the back of twenty- 

 seven, and the tail of twenty-eight; making a total of ninety. The head is so small, 

 that its length is not more than a fifth part of that of the neck. 



In the summer of 1832, Mr. Mantell made a discovery in a quarry of the Tilgate 

 grit of fragments of bonqs, whi^h he has used 'as the foundation of a new Saurian 

 genus, called by him Ilt/laosaurus, from the Greek words, ule, (wood, weald, or 

 forest), and Satirus, (Lizard). He calls it also the Wealden Lizard, or Fossil Lizard 

 of Tilgate, and gives an elaborate and highly interesting description of its anatomical 

 details, in his beautifid work "The Geology of the South- East of England." In 

 this work he notices also another new herbivorous reptile, discovered by Dr. Jaeger 

 of Stuttgard, in what is called the Keuper formation of Germany, near Wirtemburg. — 

 Eng. Ed. 



