HISTOEY OF OPHIOLOOY. 
117 
brated Bechsteif. This philosopher^ unskilled in that 
branch of science^ has drawn together^ in this translation, 
all that was known in his time on Eeptiles, and has caused 
to be engraved a great number of the figures of Seba, of 
Russell, of Merrem, and others ; I have occasionally 
quoted this compilation, in which Bechstein has introduced 
some very good original observations on the indigenous 
Ophidians. 
The classification of reptiles proposed in 1799 by M. 
Alex. Brofgniart, is founded on their general organiza- 
tion, and rests on principles too solid not to have been 
adopted by naturalists. It is to this savant that we are 
indebted for the introduction of the four orders now gene- 
rally recognised ; but as he defines Ophidians to be animals 
without feet, with the body enlongated, and cylindrical, it is 
obvious that the Anguis and Csecilia are not excluded from 
that order. Brofgfiart has further introduced the genera 
adopted by Lacepede, and augmented it by the addition of 
the genus Vipera, which comprehends many venomous 
snakes. 
Schneider, treating the natural sciences as a man of 
letters, has created the genera Hydrus, Pseudo-Boa, and 
Elaps, to class in them serpents of very heterogeneous 
kinds. We see figuring in the first, by the side of the true 
Hydrophis, the Acrochordus, and the Tropidonotus, while 
the two last genera present a confused medley of snakes 
very different from each other. 
It is difficult to comprehend why Latreille has pre- 
ferred to the classification of Brongniart a method analo- 
gous to that of Lacepede. In glancing over the work 
which he has published, and which is ornamented with pretty 
figures in miniature, but without any scientific interest, one 
perceives that this learned entomologist, in the composition 
of his work, has almost exclusively employed the materials 
furnished by Seba and Lacepede, and also some remarks 
supplied by travellers. He has, however, extended the 
list of his genera, by creating those of Scytale, Heterodon, 
Platurus, Hydrophis, Enhydrus, and in establishing sub- 
divisions in those of Coluber and Vipera. 
The second part of the third volume of the General 
