ORDER CHELONIA. 31 



of putrefaction ; — where those fearful legions of amphibious 

 monsters, and those incalculable multitudes of pestiferous 

 insects are engendered, developed, and reproduced. 



The reptile, cast by nature into this intermediate domain, 

 between the waters and the land, and as it were in the battle- 

 field of those two elements, is neither a perfect quadruped, 

 like the mammiferous animal which treads the solid earth, 

 nor a true fish, like the multitudinous population of the seas. 

 It is a sort of divided being, one of those ambiguous produc- 

 tions of nature, now appearing as a quadruped, and now as 

 a fish. 



This inconstancy of the medium inhabited by reptiles, is 

 the cause of the fantastic variety of their conformation, and 

 the strange singularity of their habitudes. It was necessary 

 that they should be fashioned to those perpetual elementary 

 changes, and enabled equally to subsist in the water, on the 

 earth and in the air. It is as necessary that those species, 

 which seem, as it Avere, to have been deformed and disgraced 

 by the hand of nature, which denuded of defence, or even 

 deprived of limbs, trail themselves along Avith effort and 

 Avith difficulty, should be protected by their prudence — 

 should glide in obscurity — should retreat from the light of 

 heaven and the persecutions of their foes. The sloAv-paced 

 tortoise, retiring under his osseous roof, awaits Avithout appre- 

 hension the various shocks to Avhich he is exposed. The 

 more agile lizard shoots into some hole or cavern, at the 

 liazard of abandoning his tail, the loss of Avhich he can easily 

 repair ; but the serpent, unable, for Avant of limbs, to avoid 

 his enemies, Avould in vain exert himself to escape. Nature 

 has, therefore, provided some of the sloAvest and most feeble 

 species of this kind with a terrible Av^eapon, impregnated Avith 

 fatal venom, to repel the aggressions of injustice : for we 

 must be equitable even to the serpent race, and confess, that 

 they but seldom act on the offensive ; on the contrary, they 



