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Show 1895.] LUNGS OP SNAKES, AMPHISB^ENID^E, ETC. 693 among pulmonale vertebrates in having the right lung completely or partially suppressed. The observations recorded in this paper are of course not exhaustive, but I think the types examined make up a good representative set; and though it is of course not safe from a knowledge of the anatomy of nine animals to prophesy as to that of a tenth though apparently nearly related, still I think the probability is that if we open a specimen of any species of Amphisbsenid we shall find the left lung well developed and the right lung smaller, rudimentary, or absent, and that in any other animal, if one lung is markedly smaller, rudimentary, or absent, it will be the left lung. In itself the suppression of one lung rather than the other does not perhaps appear to be a characteristic of great significance ; and if, as has been stated, it were a fact that some Snakes had the right lung rudimentary and some the left, the case would be different. If, however, as m y observations so far as they go indicate, the suppression of the right lung is really confined to one family of animals, which are peculiar and interesting in other ways, it is surely a point worth noting, both for its own sake and because it may probably be indicative of some less superficial peculiarity in the plan of organization of these animals. B I may perhaps be able to follow up the matter some other time when I more fully understand the significance of certain other peculiarities of these animals. The main object of the present paper is to state the facts observed. If any exceptions to the generalization above stated should be discovered 1, I should be much interested to hear of them. Such exceptions, if they exist, would not improbably be suggestive in one way or another. Let no one, however, after reading this paper speak of a rudimentary left lung in an Amphisbsenid or a rudimentary right lung in a Snake or any animal other than an Amphisbsenid until he has first carefully re-examined his specimen in the light of what follows. For permission to examine a number of species of which I do not myself possess specimens m y best thanks are due to m y former teacher Prof. G. B. Howes, and secondly to Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.E.S. The latter has also very kindly named my specimens in accordance with his latest edition of the British Museum Catalogues of Snakes and Lizards. II. A EEVIEW OP PREVIOUS STATEMENTS. At the end of this paper will be found a list of the works which, so far as m y knowledge goes, contain the most noteworthy 1 For a discussion of the description and figure of the lungs of Chirotes by Cuvier and Flourens respectively, see below, pp. 694, 702. I hope that anyone who has an opportunity of dissecting either Chirotes or any snake-like Lizards not mentioned in m y lists will make an outline sketch of the heart, lungs, and liver, in situ, as seen from the ventral side, so as to show the relative size of the two lungs. |
