ORDER II. OPHIDIA. —SERPENTS. 127 
some Saurian characters. They are, for the most part, very small animals, 
and offer no peculiarities of sufficient interest to be recorded here. 
Serrents Proper. “ What geology and anatomy have unfolded of the 
nature of Serpents, in regard to their present condition,” says Professor 
Owen, “amounts to this: that their parts are as exquisitely adjusted to the 
form of the whole, and to their habits and sphere of life, as is the organi- 
zation of any animal which we call superior to them. It is true the Serpent 
has no limbs, yet it can outclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the 
jerboa, and, suddenly loosing the coils of its crouching spiral, it can spring 
into the air, and seize the bird upon the wing; thus all these creatures fall 
its prey. The Serpent has neither hands nor talons, yet it can outwrestle 
the athlete, and crush the tiger in its folds. T’ar from licking up its food as 
it glides along, the Serpent lifts up its crushed prey, and presents it, grasped 
in the death-coil as in the hand, to the gaping, slime-dropping mouth. It 
is truly wonderful to see the work of hands, feet, fins, performed by a sim- 
ple modification of the vertebral column in a multiplication of its joints, 
with mobility of its ribs. As Serpents move chiefly on the surface of the 
earth, their danger is greatest from pressure or blows from aboye; all the 
joints are accordingly fashioned to resist yielding, and to sustain pressure in 
a vertical direction; there is no natural undulation of the body upwards and 
downwards — it is permitted only from side to side. So closely and com- 
pactly do the ten pairs of the joints between each side of the two or three 
hundred yertebrie fit together, that, even in a relaxed and dead state, the 
body cannot be twisted, except in a series of side coils. Of this the reader 
may assure himself by an experiment on a dead and supple snake. Let him 
lay it straight along a level surface, seize the end of the tail, and, by a 
movement of rotation between the thumb and finger, endeavor to screw the 
snake into spiral coils ; before he can produce a single turn, the whole of the 
long and slender body will roll over as rigidly as if it were a stick. When 
we call to mind the anatomical structure of the skull, the singular density 
and structure of the bones of the cranium strike us as a special provision 
against fracture and injury to the head. And when we consider the remark- 
able manner in which all the bones of the skull overlap one another, we 
cannot but discern a special adaptation in the structure of Serpents to their 
commonly prone position, and a provision for the dangers to which they 
were subject from falling bodies, and the tread of heavy beasts.” 
With respect to their conformation, all Serpents have a very wide mouth 
in proportion to the size of the head; and, what is very extraordinary, they 
can gape and swallow the head of another animal which is three times as 
big as their own. To explain this, it must be observed, that the jaws of 
