96 HALF-HOURS IN THE GREEN LA.NE8. 



really folds or plaits of the skin, as any snake-moult 

 will show. This flexible movement of the ribs of a 

 Snake and their adaptability for crawling purposes 

 are further assisted by the cup-and-ball mode in which 

 the vertebras are articulated. The forked tongue of 

 tne snake appears to be more of an organ of touch 

 xnan of taste. It may also be used as a protection, 

 in assisting to terrify animals by its repeated darting 

 in and out of the mouth. The teeth, in like manner, 

 are evidently of no use for mastication, only for 

 prehension. 



The Blindworm (Angruis fragilis) connects, in 

 some respects, the snakes and the lizards. It has no 

 external evidence of limbs, and hence common tra- 

 dition assigns it a place among the snakes. An 

 anatomical examination of its structure, however, is 

 sufficient to do away with this notion, and to cav.se 

 11 to be placed with the lizards. Although no limbs 

 are visible externally, the rudiments are to be found 

 concealed beneath the skin. This atrophied con- 

 dition may be accepted as a proof that some distant 

 ancestor of the blindworm had true lizard-like 

 limbs, and that disuse has caused them to assume 

 tnis rudimentary condition, just as the American 

 cave animals are found with rudimentary eyes, in- 

 capable of vision. Another feature associating the 

 olindworm with the lizards, and disassociating it 

 from the snakes, is that its eyes have moveable eye- 

 iids a feature we have seen the snakes do not 

 possess. There is a further difference in the jaws 



