OCR Text |
Show 74 REPTILIA. table; all the scales on the body are equal, small, and arranged close to each other in hexagons. . The species most known, .llnguis platurus, L.; Hydrus b1.color, Schn.; Seb. II, lxxvii, 2; Russel, xli, is b!a?k above, yellow .be· neath. Although excessively venomous, 1t 1s eaten at Otahelte. To these two subgenera I have added, CHERSYDRUS, Cuv.(l) The whole body as well as the head covered with small scales. Such is .B.crochordus fasciatus, Shaw; the Oular-limpe; Rept. pl. cxxx. A very venomous serpent, found on the bottom of rivers in Java.(2) FAMILY Ill. NUDA. Our third and last family of the Ophidians, that of the Naked Serpents, consists of but one very singular genus, which several naturalists have thought fit to refer to the Batrachians, although we are ignorant as to the fact of its undergoing any metamorphosis. It is the CJECILIA, Lin.(3) So called because its eyes, excessively small, are nearly hidden be· neath the skin, and sometimes are wanting. The skin is smooth, viscous and furrowed by annular plaits or wrinkles; it is apparently naked, but on dissection we find in its thickness, perfectly formed though delicate scales, regularly arranged in several transverse rows between the folds of the skin.( 4) The head is depressed; the anus round and nearly at the end of the body; the ribs much too short to surround the trunk: the articulation of the bodies of their vertebrre is effected by hollow conical facets filled with a gelatinous cartilage, as in Fishes and in some of the last of the Batrachians; (1} Xs~crul~or, the Greek name of the Col. natrix. (2} The Hydrm granulaJua, Schn. must be closely allied to it. N.B. The H. caapiua, enhyrl!ria, rhynchopa, piacator and paluatria, Schn. are mere common Vipers and Colubers. His Hydroa cclubrinua is the Banded Pia· turus. (3) Crecilia, from rru~"lll{, is the Latin name of the Slow-worm (Orvet), which in several parts of Europe is still called blind, although it has very fine eyes. ( 4) A fact I have ascertained in the C. glutinoaa, the White-bellied Crecilia, &c. OPHIDIA. 75 the cranium is united to the first vertebra by two tubercles, as is also the case in the Batrachians. The maxillary bones cover the orbit, which resembles a very small hole, and those of the temples the temporal depression, so that the head above presents one continuous bony buckler; the hyoid bone, composed of three pairs of arches, might induce us to suppose that at an early period it is furnished with branchire. The maxillary and palatine teeth are arranged on. two concentric lines, as in Proteus; but they are frequently sharp, and curved backwards, like those of Serpents, properly so styled. The nostrils open behind the palate, and as the tympanal bone is fixed along with those that compose the cranial shield, there is no movable pedicle to the lower jaw. The auricle of the heart is not sufficiently divided in these animals to induce us to consider it as double, but their second lung is as small as in other serpents; the liver is divided into a great number of transverse lamellre. Vegetable matters, earth and sand are found in their intestines. The only small bone contained in the ear is a little plate on the fenestra ovalis, as in the Salamanders. Some of them have an obtuse muzzle, relaxed skin, deep wrinkles, and two small cilia near the nostrils. Such is Crecilia annulata, Spix, xxvii, 1. Blackish, with eighty odd plicre marked with white circles; teeth conical. Found in Brazil, where it lives in marshes, several feet beneath the surface. C. tentaculata, L.; Amen. Acad. I, xvii, 1. One hundred and thirty odd plicre, every other pair of which, particularly near the tail, does not completely encircle the body. It is black, marbled with white on the belly. (1) Others have a much greater number of plicre, or rather of close, transverse strire. Cree. glutinosa, L.; Seb. XXV, 2; and Mus. Ad. Fred. IV, I, is of that number, having three hundred and fifty plicre, which unite beneath at an acute angle. It is blackish, with a longitudinal yellowish band along each flank. Found in Ceylon.( 2) (1) This C;ecilia is not more tentaculated than others of its subdivision. .Add, C. albiventris, Daud. VII, xcii, 1; if it is not the same as the tentaculata;-C. interrupta, Cuv. in which the white lines of the rings do not correspond with each other beneath;-C. rostrata, Cuv. with a more pointed muzzle, and no white edges to t~e rings. It is hard to say why Spix attributes upwards of two hundred plicz to his annulata; his figure shows but about eighty. (2) It is cer.tainly from Ceylon, although Daudin places its habitat in America; as we have received it from the former country through the politeness of M. Leschenault; a closely allied species, it is true, inhabits the latter-Crec. bivittata, Cuv. \ r |