OCR Text |
Show APPENDIX C.- REPTILES. 343 figures, all of which are drawn of natural size. The tail is of the length of the body, the head excluded. The latter is oval, broader than high; its summit being convex, and its snout truncated. It is covered with small, irregular, and polygonal plates, larger on the middle line of the skull than above the eye, the nose, and the nape. There is a supraorbital carina, with small elongated plates, scarcely to be seen with the naked eye. The infraorbital plates are less numerous, but longer. The eyes occupy the middle of the length of the head. The eyelids are bordered by a row of minute and pointed plates, forming a serrated edge. The nostrils are nearer the end of the snout than the eye. The angle of the mouth extends to the posterior rim of the orbit. The upper jaw is bordered with a row of small, very elongated plates, obliquely imbricated. Margining the lower jaw there are two rows of small angular plates, the larger ones being at the angle of the mouth. There is a single row of small conical teeth on both jaws; those in front are acute and slightly recurved; those behind stouter and erect, with a carina separating the rounded crown from the body of the tooth. The posterior extremity of the tongue has a semilunar notch. As observed in the generic paragraph, there are no external auditory apertures; the tympanum is covered by scales altogether similar to those of the neck. On both sides of the neck and immediately behind the angle of the mouth, is a fold of the skin, which vanishes in a depression under the head. Farther backward, and on the breast, is situated another fold, constituting an elegant neck ring, which, however, does not extend higher than the shoulders. The anterior legs are shorter and more slender than the posterior. / There are five toes, similar in each pair of limbs, elongated, slender, terminated by a compressed and recurved nail. ' The toes and nails of the posterior limb, however, are a little longer in proportion to the limbs themselves. The fourth toe is the longest, the two external ones the shortest, the second and third nearly equal. There are eleven femoral pores on each thigh. The scales are slighty imbricated, subcarinated on the back and sides, smooth underneath. They are smaller on the neck and at the base of the limbs than on the sides and back. Those on the tail are indistinctly verticillated. The smallest ones arc found under the head, in the region of the groins and behind the vent; they are larger on the abdomen than under the tail. The toes are entirely covered with scales. |