THE ROYAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



&AMBIER BOLTON. FZ.S. 



REPTILES. 



CHAPTER I. 



General Characteristics, — Class Reptilia. 



In ordinary language the term Reptile is applied indifferently to such creatures 

 as crocodiles, tortoises, lizards, snakes, frogs, and salamanders, but by the 

 naturalist it is used in a more restricted sense, and includes only the first 

 four of these, together with a host of extinct types; while the frogs and 

 salamanders, with certain other forms, both living and extinct, on account of 

 important structural differences, constitute a class by themselves, known as the 

 Amphibians, and bearing the same rank as the class of Reptiles. To an ordinary 

 observer there would seem but little in common between a scaled lizard or snake, 

 a cuirassed crocodile, and a carapaced tortoise, on the one hand,. and a feathered 

 bird on the other. Nevertheless, as we have had occasion to mention at the close 

 of the preceding volume, the connection between Reptiles and Birds is exceedingly 

 intimate, — so close, indeed, that Professor Huxley has termed the latter greatly 



VOL. V. 1 



