Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/794

Rh 750 A M P A M P musical festivals in his honour, and with a sacred enclosure (temenos) in which were two springs. At one of them he was thought to have risen from the lower world, and hence its water was employed for no sacred purpose. Invalids who had been cured by oracular prescriptions threw a piece of money in it. The water of the other spring was ex cellent to drink and to bathe in ( A^iapdov ovrp a). The oracles were conveyed in dreams, to obtain which it was necessary to fast for a time, then to offer sacrifice at the great altar (Pausanias, i. 31, 2), and again to sacrifice a ram and to sleep on its skin. The ruins of the temple, with inscriptions which identify them as such, exist still at Maurodilissi, in the ancient Oropia. In the derivation of his name from a^i-apdofj.^, the piety for which Amphi- araus was celebrated is expressed. (A. s. M.) AMPHIBIA LINN-^EUS originally employed this term to denote a class of the Animal Kingdom comprising crocodiles, lizards and salamanders, snakes and Ccecilice, tortoises and turtles, and frogs ; to which, in the later editions of the Systema Naturae, he added some groups of fishes. In the Tableau Elementaire, published in 1795, Cuvier adopts Linnseus s term in its earlier sense, but uses the French word &quot;Reptiles,&quot; already brought into use by Brisson, as the equivalent of Amphibia, in addition, Cuvier accepts the Linnsean subdivisions of Amphibia- lleptilia for the tortoises, lizards (including crocodiles), salamanders, and frogs; and Amphibia-Serpentes for the snakes, apodal lizards, and Caecilice. In 1799 1 Brongniart pointed out the wide differences which separate the frogs and salamanders (which he terms Batrachia) from the other reptiles; and in 1 804, Latreille, 2 rightly estimating the value of these differences, though he was not an original worker in the field of vertebrate zoology, proposed to separate Brongniart s Batrachia from the class of Reptilia proper, as a group of equal value, for which he retained the Linnsean name of Amphibia. Cuvier went no further than Brongniart, and, in the Regne Animal, he dropped the term Amphibia, and substi tuted Reptilia for it. Meckel, on the other hand, while equally accepting Brongniart s classification, retained the term Amphibia in its earlier Liunaean sense ; and his example has been generally followed by German writers ; as, for instance, by Stannius, in that remarkable monument of accurate and extensive research, the Handbuch der Zootomie (Zweite Auflage, 1856). In 1816, De Blaiuville, 4 adopting Latreille s view, divided the Linnsean Amphibia into Squamifbres and Nudipelliferes, or Amphibiens ; though he offered an alternative arrange ment, in which the class Reptiles is preserved and divided into two sub-classes, the Ornithoidcs and the Ichthyoides. The latter are Brongniart s Batrachia, plus the Coecilice, whose true affinities had, in the meanwhile, been shown by Dume ril; and, in this arrangement, the name Amphibiens is restricted to Proteus and Siren. Merrem a Pholidota and Batrachia (1820), Leuckart s Monopnoa and Dipnoa (1821), Muller s Squamata and Nuda (1832), are merely new names for De Blainville s Ornithoides and Ichthyoides, though Miiller gave far better anatomical characters of the two groups than had pre viously been put forward. Moreover, following the indica tions already given by Von Bar in 1828, 6 Miiller calls the attention of naturalists to the important fact, that while all the Squamata possess an amnion and an allantois, these structures are absent in the embryos of all the Nuda. 1 Brongniart s &quot; Essai d une Classification Naturelle des Reptiles &quot; was not published in full till 1803. It appears in the volume of the Memoires presentes a V Institut par divers Savans for 1805. 2 Nouveau Diclionnaire d Hisioire Naturelle, xxiv., cited in La treille s Families Naturelles du Regne Animal. 3 System der Vergleichenden Anatomie, 1821. 4 &quot;Prodrome d une Nouvelle Distribution du R&gne Animal,&quot; Bulletin des Sciences par la Societe Philvmatigue de Paris, 1816, p. 113. 6 Entvricfolungs-Qeschichte der Thiere, p. 262. Miiller makes an appeal for observations on the develop ment of the Ccecilia;, and of those Amphibia which retain gills or gill-clefts throughout life, which has unfortunately yielded no fruits from that time to this. In 1825, Latreille published a new classification of the Vertebrata, which are primarily divided into Haematlierma, containing the three classes of Mammifera, Monotremata, and Aves ; and Hcemacryma, also containing three classes Reptilia, Amphibia, and Pisces. This division of the Vertebrata into hot and cold blooded is a curiously retro grade step, only intelligible when we reflect that the excel lent entomologist had no real comprehension of vertebrate morphology ; but he makes some atonement for the blunder by steadily upholding the class distinctness of the Amphibia. In this he was followed by Dr J. E. Gray; but Dumeril and Bibron in their great work, 7 and Dr Gtinther in his Cata logue, in substance, adopt Brongniart s arrangement, the Batrachia being simply one of the four orders of the class Reptilia. Professor Huxley has adopted Latreille s view of the distinctness of the Amphibia, as a class of the Verte brata, co-ordinate with the Mammalia, Aves, Reptilia, and Pisces; and the same arrangement is accepted by Gegenbaur and Haeckel. In the Hunterian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1863, Professor Huxley divided the Vertebrata into Mammals, Sauroids, and Ichthyoids, the latter division containing the Amphibia and Pisces. Sub sequently he proposed the names of Sauropsida and Ichthy- opsida for the Sauroids and Ichthyoids respectively. It is proper to mention, finally, that Professor Owen, in his work on The Anatomy of Vertebrates, follows Latreille in dividing the Vertebrata into Hwmatotherma and Ilacma- tocrya, and adopts Leuckart s term of Dipnoa for the Amphibia. The Amphibia are distinguished from the Sauropsida and Mammalia by very important and sharply-defined characters. The visceral arches of the embryo develop gills, which temporarily, or permanently, perform the respi ratory function. There is no trace of an amnion, and it is still a question whether the irinary bladder, which all Am phibia possess, answers to the allantois of the higher Verte brata or not. At any rate, it plays no part in the respira tion of the embryo, nor is it an organ by which nutriment is obtained from the parent. There are two occipital condyles, and the basi-occipital region of the skull is either very incompletely, or not at all, ossified. There is no basi- sphenoidal ossification. When young, the Amphibia ;uo provided with, at fewest, three, and usually four, cartilagin ous, or more or less ossified, bran dual arches. From Pisces, on the other hand, they are distinguishable only br the characters of their locomotive apparatus. When they possess median fins and limbs, these never present fin- rays ; and the limbs exhibit, in full development, the type of structure which obtains among the Sauropsida and Mammalia, and differ very widely from the fins of any fish at present known. This difference obtains even among 6 Families Naturelles du RUgnc A nimal. 7 Erpttologit Oenerale, ou Histoire Naturelle complete des Reptiles 1836.