Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/267

Rh

In this Family, which consists of a single genus confined to South America, the tongue is entirely wanting. The body is flattened and very broad; the head also is large, flat, and somewhat triangular; the tympanum is concealed, the toes are divided into star-like points.

The large triangular head in this singularly uncouth reptile, bears a distant resemblance to that of a hog, having the muzzle prolonged into a sort of tube in which the nostrils terminate; the eyes are minute and situated on the upper surface of the head, near the margin; the eyelids are merely rudimentary, incapable of covering the eyes. There is no tongue, nor any teeth either in the jaws or palate, nor any external trace of the great parotid glands, so conspicuous behind the eyes of our common Toad. The gape of the mouth is very wide, the upper jaw is furnished with a little barbule, which depends on each side, and a cutaneous appendage, somewhat like a little ear, is affixed to the angle of the mouth. The fore feet are furnished with four toes each, which are long and slender, and divided at their tips into four distinct points, each of which, when examined with a microscope, is found to be obscurely divided almost in a similar manner. The hind limbs are short and stout, the feet large with five toes, united by broad membranes. The