REPTILES IN THE TARN AND THE GREEN LANES. Wf 



the green lanes. There we may meet with many 

 creatures which seem allied to newts. In the dry spots 

 we may find the viper, one or two species of lizards, 

 the blind- worm, &c ; whilst in the moister places, a 

 careful examination will almost certainly enable us 

 to come across the common snake. These old lanes, 

 unaltered for centuries, with areas leading into 

 adjacent fields, where the manure heaps are lying, 

 are just the places for our indigenous land reptiles. 

 Or, if they be not, a stretch of a few hundred yards 

 to an adjacent heath will enable us there to find 

 them. 



The true reptiles and birds have been separately 

 grouped by Professor Huxley under the name of 

 Sauropsida, in allusion to the many anatomical and 

 other resemblances reptiles have to birds, in spite of 

 their dissimilar external forms. Among these we may 

 reckon the following : The true reptiles never, at any 

 stage of their existence, possess gills, as do the 

 amphibia. The red corpuscles of their blood are 

 nucleated; the skull is articulated to the vertebral 

 column by a single condyle ; each half of the lower jaw 

 has several pieces, and is attached to the skull by 

 means of a special bone termed the " quadrate bone." 

 When we have got thus far, however, we. are obliged 

 in our study of recent forms, to stop. But the geo- 

 logical series supplies us with many intermediate 

 forms between groups so unlike as birds and reptiles. 

 On the one hand, such genera as the Arcliaeopieryx of 

 the Oolitic period, and the Ichthyornis of the Greta- 



