Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/711

 IIERPETOLOGY 693 1802-'4, published a general treatise on rep- iles, at the end of the eighth and last volume which is a resume in which he divides class into four orders, like Brongniart. )ppel, a Bavarian naturalist, published at Mu- lich in 1811 a small quarto volume on the or- lers, families, and genera of reptiles, in which adopts a mode of arrangement borrowed rincipally from Dum6ril. Latreille, in his {istoire naturelle des reptiles (1802), followed classification of LacepMe with some slight lodifications ; in 1825, in his Families du ne animal, adopting most of the divisions id some of the names of contemporary her- jtologists, he makes two classes, reptiles and amphibians. Cuvier, in his Tableau elemen- taire de Vhistoire naturelle des animaux, in 1798, divided reptiles, with Lacepede, into oviparous quadrupeds, serpents, and bipeds, giving, however, some new views on their division into orders, correcting errors in ge- neric characters, and advocating a classifica- tion founded on organization. In 1817, in his Regne animal, and in the second edition in 1829, Cuvier published a new arrangement, based on internal as well as external structure, and following chiefly the method of Dum6ril, for many years professor of this branch in the museum of natural history at Paris. He makes four orders, of which the chelonians, saurians, and ophidians have a heart with two auricles, and the batrachians with a single auricle, the first two with limbs, the third without them ; in the chelonians the jaws are toothless and corneous; in the saurians the jaws are furnish- ed with teeth, and the limbs with five or four toes to each, including the crocodilians, lacer- tians, iguanians, geckotians, chameleonians, and scincoids; in the ophidians the skin is either scaly as in anguis and the true serpents, or naked as in ccecilia ; in the batrachians the tail may be absent or long, the feet four or two, and the lungs with or without coexistent bran- chise. De Blainville, in 1822, established two classes for reptiles (psteozoaires), reptiles proper (squammiferes ornitJioldes and ichthyoid am- phibians. Dr. J. E. Gray, in 1825, published a synopsis of the reptiles and amphibians of North America; in the first class he makes five or- ders: 1, emydo-saurians orloricata; 2, saurians; 3, saurophidians, such as the skinks and chal- cidians ; 4, ophidians or serpents, divided into the venomous and non-venomous groups ; and 5, chelonians. The amphibians he makes a class by themselves, placing among them all batrachians, in the four orders of anoura, uro- dela, sirens, and apoda or pseudophidians (cceci- lics). This very natural system is founded largely on that of Oppel. In 1831 the same author published, in vol. ix. of Griffith's edi- tion of Cuvier's "Animal Kingdom," a second synopsis with short descriptions ; he divides reptiles, exclusive of amphibians, into two sec- tions : cataphracta, or shielded reptiles, and squamata, or scaly reptiles. In this, and in subsequent modifications of it in the " Cata- logues" of the British museum, he borrows largely from Wagler (noticed below) and con- temporary writers. Oken, in his " Physiophi- losophy" (Ray society, 1847), gives a classifi- cation, elaborated between the years 1802 and 1826, in which he places reptiles in his second province of sarcozoa, fourth circle of fleshy ani- mals, and eleventh class of myozoa or rhinozoa ; the first of the above class terms relating to the fact that typical or true muscles, of a red color, and provided with tendons, are first found in reptiles, and the last to the equally important fact that, in the genetic development of the organs of sense, the nose in reptiles, first in the animal series, opens into the mouth, permitting the passage of air to the respiratory organs. This classification proceeds from the lowest reptiles (tailed batrachians) to the highest (crocodiles). Cams, in his " Comparative Anat- omy," French translation (1828 and 1834), places reptiles in his third circle, cephalozoaires, and fifth class, cepnalo-gastrozoaires ; with or- ders : I., branchiata (siren and proteus), hav- ing relations to fishes ; II., pulmonata, the true representatives of the class, with the subor- ders batrachians, ophidians, saurians, and che- lonians some (ichthyosaurus and triton) ap- proaching fishes, others (dragons) the birds, others (amphisbsena) even the worms, and others still (the tortoises) the mammalia ; III., alata, related to birds, including the fossil pte- rodactyl. Much of this and subsequent classi- fications is borrowed from Oken. Fitzinger, in 1826, published at Vienna his Neue Classi- fication der Reptilien, rich in anatomical and physiological research ; he adopts the classifi- cation of Brongniart modified by Oppel, with much of the nomenclature of Merrem. The class is divided into two orders, monopnoa and dipnoa, according as the respiration is pulmo- nary only or pulmonary and branchial, the first corresponding to reptiles proper, and the last to batrachians. In a table he gives some in- teresting affinities between reptiles and the higher and lower vertebrates ; the pterodac- tyls, through the dragons and anolis, have some analogies with the mammal bats; the gavials and large fossil saurians connect the lizards with the cetacean dolphins ; some che- lonians seem to connect reptiles with the mam- mal monotremata, and others (like the imbri- cated tortoise) with birds of the penguin family ; in the same way the descent to fishes is made by the csecilians and the sirens. The method of Ritgen, published in the volume for 1828 of the Nova Acta Academic Naturae Curiosorum, is based upon correct principles, hut the author has' attempted to unite too many distinctive characters under one head, and has in this way originated a most sesquipedalian and ill-sound- ing nomenclature. Wagler, in 1830, published at Munich his " Natural System of Amphibia," based essentially on their organization. He established eight orders in the class, as follows : 1, the testudines-, 2, the crocodilians; 3, the lizards ; 4, the serpents ; 5, the angues (blind-