182 REPT1L1A. 



TYPHLOPS, Schneider*. 



The body covered with small imbricated scales like the Anguis, with which 

 they were long classed ; the projecting muzzle furnished with plates ; tongue 

 long and forked ; the eye resembling a point hardly visible through the skiu ; 

 one of the lungs four times larger than the other. They are small serpents, 

 at the first glance resembling earth-worms ; they are found in the hot portions 

 of both continents. 



In the second tribe, that of the SERPENTES, or Serpents properly so called, the 

 tympanal bone or pedicle of the lower jaw is moveable, and 

 is itself always suspended to another bone, analogous to the 

 mastoid process, attached to the cranium by muscles and 

 ligaments, which allow it some motion. The branches of 

 this jaw are not so closely united with each other, and 

 those of the upper one are merely connected with the 

 intermaxillary bone by ligaments, so that they can separate 

 to a greater or less extent, which enables these animals so 

 to dilate then- mouths as to swallow bodies larger than themselves. 



Their palatine arches participate in this facility of motion, and are armed 

 with sharp-pointed teeth which curve backwards, the most predominant and 

 constant character of the tribe. Their trachea is very long, their heart very 

 far back, and most of them have but one large lung with a vestige of another. 



Serpents are divided into venomous and non- venomous ; and the former are 

 subdivided into such as are venomous with several maxillary teeth, and those 

 which are venomous with insulated fangs. 



In such as are not venomous, the branches of the upper jaw as well as those 

 of the lower one, and the palatine arches, are everywhere furnished with fixed 

 and solid teeth; there are then four equal rows of these teeth in the upper 

 part of the mouth, and two below. 



TORTRIX, Oppel, 



Distinguished from Anguina, even externally, inasmuch as the scales which 

 form the range along the belly and under part of the tail are a little krger 

 than the others, and the tail itself is extremely short. They have but one 

 lung. 



In those non-venomous serpents, on the contrary, where the mastoid bones 

 are detached, and the jaws are susceptible of great dilatation, the occiput is 

 more or less enlarged, and the tongue forked and very extensible. 



They have long been divided into two principal genera, BOA and COLOBER, 

 distinguished by the simple or double plates on the under part of the tail. The 

 genus 



K^X{I, blind, were the names of the Anguis (blow worm) among the 

 Greeks. 



