Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/9



subjects of the present volume have been viewed in all countries and ages, with less of popular favour than other Classes of animals. Few of them are of the slightest use to man, either alive or dead; many of them are fatally poisonous, and others are terrible from their power and ferocity. The forms of some consist little with our ideas of beauty; and perhaps the coldness of their bodies when touched, the concealed situations which many of them inhabit, and the crawling motion generally observed in this Class, have also contributed to the suspicion and dislike with which they are commonly regarded. But when we discard prejudice, we find that the great majority of these animals are perfectly inoffensive; that many are clad in mail of the most brilliant polish, unsullied with spot or stain; that others are arrayed in rich and tastefully arranged colours; and that all afford, in the perfection of their structure, the skill and power displayed in the different contrivances of