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Show 50 REPTILIA. Brazil produces another, Pygopus cariococca, Spix, xxviii, 2, larger, with undivided feet like those of the lepidopode, Lacep., but more pointed, and with entirely smooth scales. It is greenish, with four longitudinal blackish lines.( 1) CHALClnEs, Daud. 'Elongated Lizards resembling Serpents; but the scales, instead of being arranged like tiles, are rectangular, forming transverse bands, which do not encroach on each other like those on the tails of ordinary lizards. Some of them have a furrow on each side of the trunk, and a still apparent tympanum. Th~y are allied to Cordylu.s just as Sepsis connected with Scincus, and lead in many points to Pseudopus and Ophisaurus. A five-toed species is known, Lac. seps, L. which inhabits the East Indies. Another with four toes, Lac. tetradactyla, Lacep. Ann. du Mus. II, lix, 2.(2) In others the tympanum is concealed, leading directly to Chi· rotes, and thence to the Am phisbrenre. There is one species with five toes.(3) A second in Brazil with four anterior and five posterior, the Heterodactylus imbricatus, Spix, xxvii, 1. A third with four to each foot.( 4) A fifth, whose toes, to the number of five before and three behind, are reduced to such small tubercles, that it has at one time been considered as having three, and at another but one.(5) From Guiana. CHIROTEs, Cuv. Similar to Chalcides in their verticillate scales, and still more so to the Amphisbrenre in the obtuse form of their head; but distin· guished from the former by the absence of hind feet, and from the (1) The Pyg.striatus, Spix, XXVill, 1, appears to me to be the young of the same species. {2) It is the genus TETRADACTYLus of Merr. or SAunoPHIB of Fitzinger. {3) This species forms the genus CuALCIDES of Fitzinger. ( 4) The genus BRACH"l'Pus, Fitz. ( 5) In the first case it is the Chalcide, Lacep. pl. xxxii, the Cha'ffl,ll,8aura cophiaa, Schn., the genus CuALCIS, Merr. and the genus CoPHU.B, Fitz.; in the second it is the Chalcide monodactyle, Daud. or the genus CoLoDus, Merr.; but all these genera are reducible to one single species. SAURIA. 51 latter by the presence of the anterior feet. One species only is known. Chamresaura propus, Schn.; L(Jc. lumbricotdes, Shaw; Bip~de cannele, Lacep. I, xli. Two short feet, four toes to each, with a vestige of a fifth, their internal organization tolerably perfect, connected by scapul<£, clavicles and a small sternum; but the head, vertebrre, and in fact the whole remainder of the skeleton resembling that of the Amphisbrenre. It is from eight to ten inches long, and about the thickness of the little finger; flesh coloured; the back invested by about two hundred and twenty half rings; there are as many on the belly, which meet alternately on the side. It is found in Mexico, where it feeds on insects. Its slightly extensible tongue terminates in two small horny points; eye very small; tympanum covered by the skin, and invisible externally; two series of pores before the anus. I found but one large lung, and a vestige of a smaller one, as in most Serpents.( 1) (1) The genera which terminate this order of Saurians interpose themselves in so many various ways between the ordinary Saurians and the genera placed at the head of the Ophidians, that several naturalists now think it improper to separate the two orders; or they establish one, comprizing, on the one hand, the Saurians minus the Crocodiles,-and the Ophidians of the Anguis family on the other. But among the fossils of the ancient calcareous formations, we find two much more extraordinary genera, which, to the head and trunk of a Saurian, add feet attached to short limbs, and formed of a multitude of little articulations collected into a species of oar or fin, similar to the fins or fore feet of the Cetacea. One of these genera, lcTHYOBAURUS, had a thick head attached to a short neck, enormous eyes, moderate tail, an elongated muzzle armed with conical teeth fastened in a groove. Different species, some of them very large, have been disinterred in England, France and Germany. The other, PLEBIOsAunus, had a small head attached to a long serpentlike neck, composed of a greater number of cervical vertebrre than is found in any other animal known; its tail was short; some of its remains have also been found on the continent. These two genera, for the possession of which we are chiefly indebted to the exertions of M. Home, Conybeare, Buckland, &c. inhabited the sea. They form a very distinct family, but what is known of their osteology approximates them much more closely to the common Saurians than to the Crocodiles, with which Fitzinger has associated them in his family of the LonicATA; and so much the more gratuitously, as neither their scales nor thei1· tongue, the two characteristic parts of the Loricata, are known. \ |