Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/142

134 viviparous, perhaps the same is true of the whole Family. They are commonly agile creatures, and the shortness of their limbs, and the smoothness of their scales, enable them to glide through small apertures with facility.

The geographical range of the species is very wide, they being spread, as MM. Duméril and Bibron observe, over nearly the whole surface of the globe, for they are found in very high latitudes, even in countries where the lowness of the temperature would seem to forbid the existence of Reptiles; thus the Slow-worm (Anguis fragilis), for example, is found as far north as Sweden, and perhaps farther. Their geographical distribution is otherwise remarkable. Europe does not possess a single species which is peculiar to itself, for though seven species are found there, they are all shared with Africa, and two of them also with Australia and Polynesia. Africa, besides these, has eighteen of its own; seventeen are peculiar to Asia, and three others it shares with America or Polynesia. Sixteen species are American, but one of these is also Asiatic, and another is cosmopolite. Australia and Polynesia are the regions richest in the Scincidæ, for they possess forty species, four only of which are common to other divisions; and it is remarkable that all the other Saurian Families are comparatively deficient there.

The nostrils in this genus open on the sides of the muzzle, in the nasal plate; the tongue is notched at the tip, clothed with papillæ, which