28 ORGANIZATIONOFREPTILES. 



newt, and in less than one year they were perfectly restored^ the newly formed 

 extremities were amputated in their turn, and in turn were replaced by others; even 

 the eye of a Salamander was extirpated in one of these experiments, and in less 

 than eighteen months this delicate organ, with its complicated apparatus of humours 

 and transparent media, was perfectly reproduced. Dumeril* has made other 

 experiments of the same nature, with still more remarkable results; a Triton lived 

 three months with three-fourths of its head removed, and consequently deprived 

 of its principal senses, sight, hearing, &c., yet it had apparently a consciousness 

 of its existence, and moved cautiously from place to place; at the end of that time 

 nature had made considerable efforts at restoration. This wonderful degree of 

 reproductive power in the inferior Reptiles, as in the Salamander, &c., may be 

 perhaps explained by the low grade of their organization, which approximates them 

 slightly to the Polypi and some of the Medusas. 



Organs of Voice. — This is the first class of animals in which we meet with a 

 voice, properly speaking, or one connected with the respiratory organs. Many 

 animals can indeed produce a variety of sounds; some by friction of their wings; 

 others, as gnats and flies, by rubbing the roots of the wings in their articular 

 cavities.t 



The larynx is simple in its structure, having no epiglottis, and in some no vocal 

 chords; in the latter case, there can be no voice. In all, the voice must be guttural, 

 as they have neither soft palate:}: nor movable lips to modulate it; most frequently 

 it is produced with the mouth closed, the outlet of the sound being the nostrils. 

 In the Chelonia§ and Ophidia there is no voice, but merely a hissing sound, occa- 



* Histoire Naturelle des Reptiles, torn. v. p. 209. 



t Oken, Zool. § 466. But we cannot suppose with him that the wings are analogous to 

 "dried up" gills, and in this way refer the sounds produced by insects to the respiratory organs. 



X The soft palate of the Alligator does not seem arranged to modulate sound. 



§ Dumeril, Hist. Nat. des Rept., tom. ii, p. 514, says the Coriaceous Turtle (Sphargis coriacea) 

 emits a plaintive sound when taken. 



