OPHIDIANS. 511 



assigning a small number of young to the venomous species, 

 while many of the harmless kinds are extremely prolific. The 

 females often take care of their young for a time. On the ap- 

 proach of danger, they have been seen to receive the whole fam- 

 ily into their throats, and when it has passed, to restore them 

 again to the open air. 



The voice or hiss of serpents, which is often exerted, is more 

 or less loud and piercing. It is the expression of anger or im- 

 patience ; the warning of an attack, or the signal of defiance. 



Their senses exhibit different degrees of development. They 

 cannot be said to possess that of touch in a high degree, though 

 they have what is sufficient to regulate their progression, and 

 indicate the kind of surfaces with which their bodies are brought 

 into contact. 



The tongue is soft, fleshy, bifid (or divided into two branches) 

 at its extremity, and working in a sheath. It is never venomous, 

 as is commonly supposed. As an organ of taste, it cannot be 

 very susceptible. The prey is swallowed entire, and under cir- 

 cumstances which afford little or no opportunity for the exercise 

 of taste by the tongue. 



The sense of smell, judging from the structure and habits of 

 these reptiles, cannot be very acute. 



The eyes are generally very small, not protected by movable 

 eye-lids, nor by a nictitating membrane, so that they always ap- 

 pear to be fixed or on the watch. It is remarkable that the trans- 

 parent cornea seems to form part of the skin and epidermis, 

 with which it is detached at each moult of the reptile. Vision, 

 excepting for a time previous to a change of the skin, when it is 

 evidently less perfect, appears sufficiently acute in reptiles of the 

 present order. 



Serpents sometimes grow from a length of twelve or fourteen 

 inches, when they are first excluded, to that of twenty-five or 

 thirty feet, and attain 'to a great age. They are extremely tena- 

 cious of life, often surviving very severe wounds. Instances 

 have occurred in which the head, severed from the body, has, 

 after a considerable time, not only retained vitality, but bitten 

 with fury. 



The popular opinion that serpents are capable of exercising a 

 power of fascination over their intended victims, is perhaps not 

 well founded. The most eminent ornithologists refer the effects 

 produced upon birds by the presence of these reptiles, to the fear 

 amounting to terror which is thus occasioned, and to the instinc- 

 tive solicitude for their young, which induces them to approach 

 these reptiles too nearly for their own safety. The serpent 



