598 



each side : at a small distance between these arc 

 two minute papillae or tentacular vent immediately 

 beneath the tip of the tail, small, and by its outline 

 forming eight or nine crenatures round the fora- 

 men : rugae for about an inch before the end closer 

 than on the rest of the body : skin of the head per- 

 fectly smooth, or without the minute granulations 

 dispersed over all the rest of the animal : no ap- 

 pearance of eyes : colour of the whole an uniform 

 dull brown. It is supposed to be a native of 

 South America*. 



I CANNOT conclude the enumeration of the 

 Serpent tribe without observing, that this branch 

 of Natural History still requires much elucida- 

 tion, and is, perhaps, of all others, the most liable 

 to errors and uncertainties. The Linnsean charac- 

 ters of these animals, in the Systema Naturae, are, 

 from their extreme brevity, but ill calculated for 

 general information, nor can it be surprising that 

 they should now be considered as constituting little 

 more than a mere series of memorandums relative 

 to abdominal and subcaudal scales; while many 

 of the most remarkable serpents in the works of 

 Scheuchzer and Seba, seem to have been entirely 

 neglected, apparently for no other reason than 

 that the number of these parts could not be ascer- 



* In the Museum Adolplu rridciici it is figured under the name 

 of C. tentaculata, and appears to be confounded with that species. 



