ORDER OPHIDIA. - 245 



small. Their teeth are small and conical. I think 

 I have perceived a few in the palate. These are 

 easily to be recognized by their muzzle which is 

 enclosed as it were in a kind of mask. 



The species well known, (^Angiiis Meleagrisy L.) 

 Seb. II. xxi. 1,* comes from the Cape of Good 

 Hope. It resembles our snake, but its obtuse tail 

 is much shorter. Upon its back are eight longitu- 

 dinal ranges of brown spots. The same country 

 produces other species, one of which is entirely 

 blind. (^Ac. Cceciis, Cuv.) 



The second family, or that of 



The true Serpents, 



Which is by far the most numerous, comprehends 

 the genera without sternum, or vestige of shoulder, 

 but whose ribs surround a great part of the circum- 

 ference of the trunk, and in which the bodies of the 

 vertebra are articulated, each by a convex facet, into 

 a concave facet of the following one. Tliey are 

 destitute of the third eyelid, and of the tympanum, 

 but the osselet of the ear exists under the skin, and 

 its handle passes behind the tympanic bone. Many 

 of them have under the skin, a vestige of posterior 



* Daudin has also made an eriv of the Anguis Meleagris, but without 

 any reason, for its lower scales are not larger than the others. I have as- 

 certained, by dissection, that this serpent has not the sternum which M. 

 Oppcl has attributed to it. 



