REPTILES. 



vations on this fubjeft in his natural hiftory of the genus 

 teftudo. 



Their fubftance exhibits, in the tortoifes, large fafcicuh, 

 of which the divifions pafs in various diredlioni, united by 

 celUdar tiffue : thefe fafcicuh are fine, eyhndritai, and ealily 

 feparable in the lizards. In the crucudilc, according- to 

 Geoffroy, the telles are like thofe of lifli, narrow and elon- 

 gated, and lyinp; above and in front of the kidiiies (proba- 

 bly more corredlly in front of and below thefe glands). In 

 the batracians we can diftiiiguifli merely an agglome;-atioii of 

 fmall white grains interfperled with blood-veifels. No cor- 

 pus Highmori can be difcerned. 



Yellow appendages, confifting of a fatty fubllance fur- 

 rounded by a membrane, and floating in the abdomen, are 

 connefted to the front end of the telles in the frogs and 

 toads. 



The epididymis of the chelonians is a packet made up by 

 the convolutions of a large canal (the vas deferens), which is 

 tortuous in its whole courfc, and ends in the cloaca at the 

 part correfponding to the bafii of the penis and its canal. 

 It forms, in the lizards, a detached body, large and pyra- 

 midal, larger than the tefticle, adhering to it only by a finall 

 thread, and evidently made up entirely of the convolutions 

 of the vas deferens. The latter palles along the cuter edge 

 of the kidney to the cloaca, in which it opens. 



In the crocodile the femen is conveyed into two vei'iculs 

 of confiderable fize, contiguous to each other, placed at the 

 back of the common cloaca, and partly included in a carti- 

 laginous fac. They open into tiie cloaca by fix or feven 

 holes on each fide, arranged in a circular form round the 

 meatus urinarius. Geoffroy. If thefe are veCculae feminalcs, 

 it is the only example we know among reptiles of fuch 

 organs. 



The teftis is long and flender, and the relative bulk of the 

 epididymis is lefs in the ophidians ; it foon changes into a vas 

 deferens, alfo very tortuous, opening in this, as in the pre- 

 ceding orders, into the cloaca. In the latter only the 

 canals are inferted in a papilla, which has been incorreftly 

 defcribed as a penis. A more minute account of thefe or- 

 gans in the viper, may be feen in Charas, Defcription Anato- 

 raique de la Vipere. 



Vejuuld: Saninaks. — There is no refervoir analogous to the 

 veficulae feminales properly fo called, nor to the accefibry 

 veficulae of fome mammalia in any of the other claffes of 

 vertebral animals. They have been fpoken of in the viper 

 and the batracians, as well as in fome birds ; but it feems 

 that a fimple dilatation of the vas deferens has been miftaken 

 for them. Poffibly future refearches may fhew that the ar- 

 rangement mentioned above in thf crocodile conftitutes an 

 exception to this remark. This is the ftatement of Cuvier. 

 Blumenbach fpeaks of large veficulx feminales in the frog, 

 which arc wanting in the toad. $ 324. (See Roefel Hiftor. 

 Ran. Noftr. tab. 5, 6, and 21.) Charas, in his defcription 

 of the viper, fpeaks of two refervoirs connected with the 

 vafa deferentia, and always full of a fluid, like that of the 

 tefticles, under the nam.e of veficulae feminales. 



The fecretion of the tefticles, as obferved by Spallanzani 

 in the frog and toad, was a tranfparent fluid like water. 

 From the parts, which he calls veficula; feminales, of the 

 frog, he could procure at the time of copulation from two 

 to three grains of this fluid. In the water newt it was, in 

 colour and confiflence, like thick milk. He could not dif- 

 cover in it any remarkable fenfible property — nothing pun- 

 gent — nothing acid or alkaline. (Difiertations, v. 2.) He 

 alfo found the feminal fluid, both of the frog and newt, to 

 abound with the living verraiculi. Trads, v. i. p. 300 

 and 301. 



Organs of Copulaiion.—There are two fpecies of tniicii 

 between the male and female. In tiie greater number there 

 is a male organ introduced into the body of the female, and 

 conveying the fecundating liquor : but in the batracians, 

 wliich have no male organ, there is merely a conjunftion 

 of ttieir bodies, it is a prehenfion by the male rather than a 

 true copulation. 



In tiic males of thofe batracians which copulate thus> 

 there is a peculiar organifation of the llcin of the liand. 

 Firm tubercles, compofed of liard, blackifh or brown pa- 

 pillae, cover not only the thumb, but alfo the palm of the 

 hand. Thele being preifed into the flcin of the female, give 

 the male a very firm hold. They difappear after the feafon 

 of copulation, and are not feen again until that feafon recurs. 

 The copulation of the frog kind is effefted in the following 

 way : the male afcends the back of the female, paffes his 

 front limbs under her axillse, and carries them round the chefl, 

 until the fingers crofs in front. He continues grafping her 

 firmly in this way until the laying is finifhed. The pollerior 

 part of his body pailes beyond that of the female, fo that 

 he can fecundate the eggs as they are expelled, and he is faid 

 to affill in tliat operation. They remain joined for feveral 

 days, and the grafp of the male is fo firm, that great force 

 is necellary to fep.uate him. Contufion and laceration of 

 the breall, and even the death of the female, fometimes 

 follow the violent draining of the male. (See Spallanzani's 

 Difiertations, vol. i. p. 17.) The males are more bril- 

 liant at the feafon of copulation, which takes place only 

 once a-year, in the early fpring ; they inflate their vocal 

 bladder more frequently, and indulge in their eroaking 

 noife. In the falamanders a crefl, with divided edge, ap- 

 pears on the back and tail, and is afterwards, in great mea- 

 fure, loft. 



The duration of copulation in the frogs is inverfely pro- 

 portional to the warmth of the atmofphere. When this is 

 confiderable, the female will be free in five or fix days ; but, 

 in a cold feafon, the embraces of the male continue for eight 

 or nine days. The feafon of re-produftion is the be- 

 ginning of fpring : in the very firft days, the frogs begin to 

 ftir themfelves in our marfhes and ponds : they copulate, 

 lay and fecundate their eggs very foon. At the fame feafon, 

 the tortoifes, lizards, and ferpcnts, accomplifh the fame 

 procefs. Sometimes frogs are found united even before the 

 frolls have ended. Daudiu found two frogs in copulation 

 in the middle of February, the thermometer of Reaumur 

 at 3° above zero ; it defcended in the night to 4° below o ; 

 and the pond was frozen for two days ; at the end of which 

 time the female began to lay. Hift. Nat. des Reptiles, vol. i. 

 p. 207, 208. 



One of the toads, on which Spallanzani made his experi- 

 ments, copulates in the beginning of March or end of Fe- 

 bruary, before all the fnow is melted ; the procefs lafts ten, 

 twelve, fourteen, or even twenty days, if the feafon be cold. 

 Spallanzani, ch. 3. 



The abdomen fwells greatly in both fexes during copula- 

 tion ; in the female, from the enlargement cf the ova ; in 

 the male, from the depofition under the fkin of a very limpid 

 water, which difappears after the laying. 



The tree-frogs, at leaft that of Europe (hyla viridis) do 

 not copulate like the frog and toad. The male fixes himfelf 

 on the female, by merely applying his anterior paws under 

 her axillx, and employing the tubercles of the fingers. He 

 remains in this fituation for twelve or fifteen hours, or even, 

 according to Roefel, three days. 



The falamanders do not copulate at all ; the male places 

 his head on that of the female, and difcharges the iemmzl 

 fluid, which is received by the female organs. See Spallan- 



aani, 



