gS CLASSIFICATION OF AMPHIBIANS. 



phibians. Professor Bell^ whose opinion we adopts 

 places it as the type of a distinct order, which he nameg 

 Apoda.'^ They derive their name from the excessive 

 smaliness of the eyes^ which are nearly ccncealed beneath 

 the skin_, while in olie species (C. lumbrico'ides Daud.) 

 they are altogether wanting. The structure of these 

 reptiles is so peculiar, and so important in reference to 

 our opinion on the station they hold as an extreme aber- 

 rant type^ that we shall give them nearly in the words 

 of the Regne Animal. "The Ccecilia," observes M. 

 Cuvier, " has the skin smooth, viscous, and furrowed 

 with folds or annular wrinkles : it appears naked, but 

 when dissected exhibits in its thickness some scales, 

 slender indeed, but perfectly formed, and regularly dis- 

 posed in many transverse ranges between the wrinkles 

 of the skin. The head is depressed, the anus round^ 

 and situated nearly at the extremity of the body : the 

 ribs are much too short to surround the trunk : the ar- 

 ticulations of the bodies of the vertebrae are made by fa- 

 cets, hke a hollow cone filled with gelatinous cartilage, 

 as in fishes and salamanders ; and their cranium, hke 

 that of frogs, is united to the first vertebra by two tu- 

 bercles. Among the ophidians, the AmpMsbcBiKs alone 

 approximate to this structure. The maxillary bones 

 cover the orbit, which is only pierced with a very small 

 hole, and those of the temples cover the temporal foss, 

 sd that the head presents above nothing but a continued 

 osseous buckler. Their hyoid bone, composed of three 

 pieces of arches, might lead to the belief that in their 

 early age they had gills. Their maxillary and palate 

 teetli are ranged on two concentric hues, as in the si- 

 rens (or true Amphibia), but are often sharp and curved 

 backv^'ards, like those of true serpents. Their nostrils 

 open at the back part of the palate, and their lower jaw 

 has no mobile pedicle, since the tympanic bone is en- 

 chased with the other bones in the buckler of the cra- 

 nium. The auricle of the heart is not divided sufticiently 

 deep to be regarded as double ; but their second lung is 



* The learned professor will probably change this name, as it is too like 

 that of the Liunaean order of &i>hes—Apodcs. 



