180 



THE SLENDER CECILIA. 



Among these remarkable animals, the orders multiply themselves rapidly. The Pseudo- 

 phidia, or False Seipents, include some very curious species, whose position remained long 

 unsettled. There is but one family, and all its memliers liave very long and cylindrical 

 bodies, no limbs, a very short tail, and a smooth wrinkled skin, in which are embedded a 

 multitude of minute scales. The two worm-like creatures, the White-bellied Csecilia and the 

 Slender Csecilia, are good examples of this very remarkable family. 



The name Cjecilia is derived from a Latin word signif pug blindness, and is given to the 

 creature because the eyes are always minute, and in some species are hidden under the skin. 

 The White- BELLIED Cecilia inhabits Southern America, and, like the rest of its kin, bur- 

 rows under the ground after the fashion of the earth-worm, to which it bears so strong an ex- 

 ternal resemblance, preferring wet and marshy ground to dry soil. Its body is rather thick and 

 cylindrical, and is surrounded by about one hundred and fifty incomplete rings. The muzzle 

 is rounded and so is the tail. There are teeth in the jaws and on the palate, all of which are 

 short, strong, and conical ; the tongue has a curiously velvety feel to the touch. Below each 

 nostril there is a small pit, sometimes taken for a second nostril. 



The color of the White-bellied Cfecilia is blackish, marbled with white along the under 

 surface. 



TIlKKE-TOKl) CONGO UtikKK-Muranopsis tndactyla. 



The Slender Cjecilia derives its name from its slight form. In this species the body is 

 smooth throughout the greater part of its length, but towards the tail the skin is gathered into 

 fifteeji circular folds pressed closely together. The muzzle is rather broad and rounded. The 

 body of the Slender Cfecilia is extremely elongated, being about two feet in length, and not 

 thicker than an ordinary goose-quill. Its color is almost wholly black. 



The small but very remarkable order of animals which stands next in our list, has 

 proved an insoluble enigTna to the systematic zoologists, who not only are unable to decide 

 u])on any order to which it may belong, or in what precise relation it stands to other reptiles, 

 but are not even able to announce positively its class, or to say whether it is a reptile or a fish. 

 The three species which comprise this order — if indeed they do not form a separate class — are 

 so fish-like in most pai'ts of their anatomy and theii- general habits, that they might be regarded 

 as belonging to the fishes, were not they allied to the reptiles by one or two peculiarities of 

 their structure. Some accurate and experienced anatomists accordingly place these creatures 

 among the fishes, while others, equally experienced, consider them as belonging to the reptiles. 



