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Show 694 MR. GERARD W. BUTLER ON THE [Nov. 19, contributions to the subject herein discussed. I will here briefly allude to these and to a few other references of lesser importance, partly to do justice to the authors named, and partly to show cause for the publication of this present paper. (i.) I have already referred to the work of Nitzsch [(1)]. His treatment of the matter is excellent, so far as it goes1. (ii.) J. F. Meckel [(2) p. 84], using of course an earlier system of classification in discussing the lungs of Snakes, noted correctly that in the Amphisbaenidae the rudimentary lung, if present, is on the right side, but he spoilt this observation by adding that this also was the case with all the " Colubers" he had examined2. He was again, however, right in saying that the smaller lung was on the left in all the Boas and Torlrix scytale, as well as in Anguis fragilis. (iii.) In his later work [(3) pp. 259 & 260] he made another mistake in adding Ccecilia, as well as the Colubers, to the Amphisbaenidae as having the rudimentary lung on the right side. He was, however, right in placing Platurus and Typhlops, as well as the lizards Ophisaurus, Pseudopus, Bipes, and Seps with the Boas, Tortrix, and Anguis of his previous paper, as having the right lung the largest. As to Chirotes, which Amphisbsenid, he avers, has the right lung much the largest, see below, pp. 702 & 703. (iv.) The treatment of this subject in the second edition of Cuvier's 'Legons d'Anatomie comparee' [(4)] shows in some respects a marked advance on the papers previously mentioned. Nevertheless, although we have details with regard to some 1 Nitzsch, I. c. p. 13, after describing the lungs of Lizards, says that Anguis fragilis has the right lung rather longer than the left. He then describes the rudimentary left lung of Tropidonotus {Coluber) natrix :- " In Colubro natrice autem sinistrum liberum, minimum, piso communi parum majorem, tamen cellulosum, dextrum contra maximum, longissimum . . . Quemadmodum vero in isto Colubro, ita in reliquis serpentibus, quibus auctores unum modo pulmonarem follem tribuunt, hoc organon comparatum [paired] esse autumaverim. Haud dubie sinister, quanquam minimus, vere adest. Non omnibus saltern serpentibus unum duntaxat pulmonem esse proposita exempla docent." The expectation expressed in the last sentence but one is of course not fully borne out. There are a number of Snakes that have no trace of a second lung; but there are very many in which, as in Tropidonotus natrix, the left may be easily overlooked. I have thought it worth while to quote his words because he was apparently the first to describe this rudimentary left lung, because his description is so good, and because he at once grasped the fact that the rudimentary lung of such a Colubrine Snake is the left lung-a thing which has always seemed to me pretty obvious, but which has struck some other people differently. 2 Meckel and Cope have used the terms " Colubern " and " Colubroidea" respectively [see (2) and (7)1 in a wide sense almost co-extensive with the Linnean genus Coluber, so that under these headings come a large majority of known Snakes. This of course adds greatly to the importance of any general statement they make as to Colubers or Colubroidea. Further, if Meckel and Cope do not actually state that the rudimentary lung of these Snakes corresponds to the right lung of other animals, their writings tend to spread this view when, without further comment, they say that this rudimentary lung is " on the right side," or, as Cope, figure it as " right lung." |
