HISTOKY OE OPHIOLOaY. 
123 
plates 'VYliicli illustrate them are executed with care, and 
represent the objects with exactness. We regret not 
to be able to give the same praise to those published by 
Wagler from the specimens collected in the travels of M. 
Spix. We find introduced into this book, under new 
names, the most common species ; the same species is 
sometimes figured under several different denominations, 
and even disposed in different genera ; the species collected 
in Spain are there described as natives of Brazil ; the num- 
ber of genera has been most unnecessarily augmented, and 
new generic appellations are arbitrarily substituted for the 
old. The author, in loading his descriptions with idle de- 
tails, has rendered them diffuse : in a word, the defects 
which abound are not at all compatible with the ostenta- 
tion displayed in this work, and in some similar publica- 
tions. 
The design of the works of M. Fitzinger professing to 
be an arrangement of Beptiles according to their natural 
afiinities, this herpetologist has reunited the Ophidians to 
the Saurians, which are divided into many families ; the 
denominations which he has used to designate the numer- 
ous generic groups he has created, are in a great measure 
borrowed from the barbarous momenclature of Seba ; an 
enumeration of the Ophidians that form a part of the Mu- 
seum of Vienna is annexed to his little work, as an illus- 
tration of his views. Mine differing in many respects from 
his, I shall here state some facts scattered throughout his 
book, to serve as points of comparison. 
The genus Duberria of M. Fitzinger comprehends 
species which make part of my genera Calamaria, Coluber, 
Xenodon, Coronella, Xaja, and Lycodon. We see ar- 
ranged aihong his Colubers, species of Coronella, Psam- 
mophis, Lycodon, Xenodon, Herpetodryas, Dipsas, Tro- 
pidonotus, and true Colubers ; in the family of the Colu- 
broides are included the Acrochordus, Hydrophis, Herpe- 
ton, Xenopeltis, and all the other harmless serpents, with 
the exception of the Tortrix and the Boa ; but of the two 
succeeding families each contains sea-serpents, which figure 
beside the Viper, Flaps, or Naja, genera too widely sepa- 
