THE SERPENT 



431 



siderable number might be added to enlarge 

 the catalogue ; but having supplied a general 

 history, the mind turns away from a subject, 

 where every object presents something formid- 

 able or lothesometo the imagination. Indeed, 

 the whole tribe resemble each other so nearly, 



1 Supplemental Note on Reptiles. This department of 

 animated beings, forming the third class of vertebrate aui- 

 mals, according to the arrangement of Cuvier, has occu- 

 pied various situations in the classification of authors. 

 Many of this species were known to the ancients. 

 Pliny, in his Historia Naturalis, has given all the infor- 

 mation, respecting those that were known during his 

 time, which was, however, extremely limited, iu com- 

 parison to what is our present stock of knowledge. The 

 first of the moderns who increased our knowledge respect- 

 ing the Reptilia was Aldrovandus, a Bohemian noble- 

 man, and a professor of the university of Bologna : he 

 published the first volume of his Natural History in 

 folio, in the 1599, which was continued by his successors, 

 and completed in fourteen volumes, in the year 1640. 

 Gesnei-, a physician of Zurich, was the next who took 

 up this subject ; he published a work entitled a History 

 of Animals, in three volumes folio, which appeared iu 

 1620. To this work he added a treatise on Serpents. 

 He was followed by Topsel, a British author, who pub- 

 lished a History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents 

 in folio, 1718. These several works contain much 

 curious information respecting reptiles, but so mixed up 

 with fable, and the romance of travellers, that the 

 accounts are not to be depended upon, and it is difficult 

 to separate the pure matter from the dross. The ani- 

 mals of this class have in all ages furnished matter for 

 fiction, from the dangerous qualities of many of the 

 species, or the disgusting forms and frightful appearance 

 of others. We are told that the march of the army of 

 Attilius Regulus was arrested by the power of an African 

 serpent, 120 feet long ; and the Basilisk was said to 

 possess the power of killing any person who looked at it, 

 with a glance from its eyes. 



But it was not until the publication of the Synopsis 

 Methodica Animalium, Quadrupedum et Serpentini 

 generis, in the year 1693, by Ray, that we had any 

 distinct classification of reptiles which was worthy of 

 attention. His arrangement consists of three orders ; 

 first, oviparous animals, with red blood, which respire 

 by means of lungs, and which have a heart consisting of 

 one ventricle. This order includes frogs, divided into 

 aquatic and terrestrial, toads, and tortoises. Second, 

 Lizards, and their congeners, including the saurians of 

 Cuvier ; and third, Serpents, or the ophidians of Cuvier. 



The next systematic writer who followed Ray was 

 Linnaeus, who arranged this class of animals under the 

 title of Amphibia in his Systema Natural : these he 

 divided into three orders : namely, Reptilia, Serpents, 

 and Nantes, which last most improperly included the carti- 

 laginous fishes ; these were removed to their proper 

 station by Gmelin, who published an edition of the 

 Systema Naturae, with additions, in the year 1758. 

 Linnteus was followed by Klein, who, in 1755, pub- 

 lished his Tentamen Erpetologite, in which he arranged 

 serpents into two orders ; first, those whose heads are 

 distinct from the body, with an elongated tail; and 

 second, those with the head not distinctly developed 

 from the body, and provided with an obtuse tail. 



The next author was Laurentini, a physician of Vienna, 

 who published his Specimen Medicum exhibens Synopsin 

 Reptilium emendatam, in 1768, in which he divides 

 them into three orders; namely, 1. Leapers, including 

 frogs and their congeners; 2. Walkers, such as lizards ; 

 3. Serpents. But this author entirely omitted tortoises 

 in his classification. 



The naturalist whose works are next worthy of notice, 



that the history of one may almost serve for 

 every other. They are all terrible to the im- 

 agination, all frightful to behold in their fury, 

 and have long been considered as a race of 

 animals, between whom and~rnan there is a 

 natural antipathy. 1 



is Lacepede, who in 179S 1800, published his His- 

 toire Naturelle, Generate et Particuti&re des Quadrupedes 

 ovipares et des Serpentes, intended as a continuation of 

 the Histoire Naturelle ot Bufibu. His classification 

 differs but little from that of Linnaeus, but contains a 

 great mass of new and interesting matter, and he gives 

 more accurate details, and more precise generic distinc- 

 tion than that author. 



We now come to Brongniait, whose classification of 

 reptiles far outstripped all those who preceded him. In 

 1799, he first made known his arrangements, which was 

 published in 1805, under the title of Essai d'une Classi- 

 fication Naturelle des Reptiles. This has superseded all 

 other arrangements, and has been followed by Cuvier in 

 his Regne Animal His orders are constructed upon 

 their organization, such as generation and respiration, 

 together with the exercise of the animal function, such 

 as touch, digestion, and locomotion. Founded upon 

 these, he divides the class Reptiles into four orders ; viz. 



1. Chelonians, in which the body is covered with a 

 shield or plate, comprehending the turtles and tortoises. 



2. Saurians, having the body covered with scales, in- 

 cluding crocodiles, and their congeners. 3. Ophidians, 

 destitute of feet, such as serpents. Batrachians, whose 

 bodies are covered with a naked skin ; exemplified in 

 frogs, &c. 



In the Htslotre Naturelle des Rer tiles of Latreille, 

 published in Deterville's edition of the Histoire Naturelle 

 of Buflbn, as also in his Families Naturelles du Regne 

 Animal, published in 1825, he has attempted some 

 trivial changes on the classification of Brongniart ; re- 

 taining, however, all the principal features of his arrange- 

 ment untouched. 



Dume'ril, in his Siemens des Sciences Naturelles, has 

 also made some changes; but these are unimportant. 



Daudin published his Histoire Naturelle des Reptiles, 

 in eight volumes 8vo., at Paris, in 1802, 1803. In this 

 elaborate work much curious information is brought for- 

 ward, and many particular facts, which were before un- 

 known; but in his arrangement he has followed Brong- 

 niart, with some slight modification in the genera. 



In the Linnn:an Transactions and Zoological Journal 

 are some interesting papers on Reptiles by Mr Thomas 

 Bell. His monography of the tortoises having a mov- 

 able sternum in the second volume of the Zoological 

 Journal, and also his essay on Leptophina, a group of 

 serpents, contain some valuable additions to our know- 

 ledge of reptiles. 



The heart in reptiles is so constructed, that at each of 

 its contractions, only a portion of the blood which it re- 

 ceives is transmitted to the lungs, the remainder of this 

 fluid is returned to circulate again, without having 

 passed into the lungs, and, consequently without having 

 been subjected to respiration ; hence it results that the 

 action of oxygen on the blood is greatly less than in 

 mammiferous animals and birds, where all the blood, by 

 passing through their lungs, is exposed to the action of 

 the air. Consequently, as respiration causes the heat in 

 the blood, and gives to the muscular fibre its suscepti- 

 bility for nervous irritation, the temperature of reptiles 

 is much lower, and their muscular power greatly weaker 

 than that of the mammalia, and birds. Therefore they 

 are said to be cold blooded animals. Their general 

 habits are also much less energetic, almost all their mo- 

 tions consisting of crawling and swimming, and although 

 several species run or leap, at times with considerable 

 facility, yet upon the whole, their actions are sluggish. 



