174" CLASS REPTILIA. 



accidents which only affect certain parts of their body, they 

 speedily succumb under the influence of external causes 

 which attack the entire of their economy with energy and 

 perseverance ; this is in consequence of the want of reaction 

 in their internal faculties. Thus an atmosphere more cold 

 than temperate, immediately renders them feeble and ill, 

 and often kills them. Thus we find that the gigantic cro- 

 codiles, the iguanas, the basilisks, and all the large sized 

 races of the family of the saurians, frequent, in both worlds, 

 only the rivers, the Savannahs, the hot and humid forests, 

 or the burning sands of the torrid regions. To such haunts 

 these larger species appear to be confined ; and if any among 

 them are found to frequent countries more or less remote 

 from the equator, their dimensions grow progressively smaller, 

 and their individuals become less and less numerous. 



The deficiency of the sensitive system among the saurians, 

 prevents the individuals of the same species from forming any 

 thing like a true society, though they may often be found 

 united in troops more or less numerous. No kind of labour, 

 no operations of building, of hunting, or of war, says Count 

 Lacepede, ever result from their congregatings. They never 

 construct an habitation ; and when they make choice of one 

 on the banks of rivers, in rocks, or hollow trees, it is no com- 

 modious dwelling for a number of them united, but a purely 

 individual retreat, in which they make no change, and use 

 it solely for the purposes of concealment. 



If they are ever found to hunt or fish together, it is 

 only that they are simultaneously drawn by the same want, 

 or attracted by the same bait. If they ever defend them- 

 selves in common, it is only when they are attacked in 

 common. 



Notwithstanding the almost untameable ferocity of some 

 of these reptiles, and the discouraging stupidity of others, 

 yet are many of them susceptible of being tamed, and ren- 



