ORDER II. SAURIA. ORDER III. OPHIDIA. 63 



greater part of them have four feet, but a few are possessed 

 of only two. They have nails and teeth, and their skin is 

 covered with scales. 



The Crocodile is the most celebrated animal of this order. 

 It is from twenty to thirty feet in length, including the tail, 

 and is covered with a coat of scales, which, on the back, form 

 an armor proof against a bullet, and have an appearance like 

 that of carved work. It deposits its eggs in the sand, where 

 the greater part of them are destroyed by birds, and an ani- 

 mal called the ichneumon. Their eggs resemble, a good deal, 

 those of the domestic goose, and are of about the same size ; 

 the young, when first hatched, are of course very small when 

 compared with the parent animal. They are at first mild and 

 innocent, and may be handled with impunity ; but the full- 

 grown animal is both subtle and formidable. It lies in wait, 

 covered from view amidst long grass, rushes, or projecting 

 banks of rivers, until some other animal comes within its 

 reach, which it seizes and swallows, and then retires to some 

 secret recess to digest. 



The Dragons are remarkable for the possession of a sort of 

 wings, produced by the extension of the six first false ribs, 

 which support a fold of the skin. These serve, like a para- 

 chute, to uphold these animals in leaping to the grouno 1 from 

 any height, or in springing from branch to branch on the trees 

 they inhabit ; but are not sufficiently large or powerful to 

 enable them to raise themselves from the earth. 



To Chameleons has been attributed the singular faculty of 

 changing the color of their skin, according to the color of the 

 substance on which they are placed, and of subsisting upon 

 air. This belief has arisen from the extraordinary size of 

 their lungs, which they are capable of distending with air to 

 such an enormous extent, as to fill nearly their whole body, 

 and render their skin somewhat transparent. Hence they 

 were said to feed upon air. In this state of distension and 

 semi-transparency, the skin becomes easily affected by every 

 change in the circulation; and consequently a change of 

 color is produced by the varying wants and passions of the 

 animal, which influence both the quantity of respiration and 

 the tint of the blood. 



A few animals of the lizard kind are remarkable for their 

 very short legs, and long slender bodies, giving them the ap- 

 pearance of serpents with feet, for which they have sometimes 

 been mistaken. 



III. Ophidia. The serpents are distinguished by their 



