Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/803

 SEEOUS MEMBRANES All and Tippoo Sahib, and the ancient palace of the rajahs of Mysore. Seringapatam first appears historically in 1610 as the capital of a Mysore chief named Raj Wadeyar, and was un- successfully besieged by the Mahrattas in 1697. In 1765 Hyder Ali established his government there, and a Mahratta army again attacked the city in 1772 and forced him to a humiliating peace. During the reign of Tippoo Sahib, in 1792, it was invested by a large British force under Lord Cornwallis, who exacted a war in- demnity of 3,300,000 from the native mon- arch, together with the cession of about half his dominions to the English and their allies. In 1799 Seringapatam underwent a celebrated siege. It was invested by the British and the allied forces of the nizam, about 31,000 strong, under Gen. Harris, on April 6, and was stormed and captured on May 4, after four days' bom- bardment, and a loss to the British of 1,164 killed and wounded. The assault was led by Gen. Baird, and Col. "Wellesley, afterward duke of Wellington, participated in it. Tippoo Sa- hib was killed, and 929 pieces of ordnance, together with enormous amounts of treasure and jewels, fell into the hands of the victors ; 1,100,000 in prize money was divided among the troops. In 1809 the discontent with the management of the Madras army led to a mu- tiny of the European officers stationed at Se- ringapatam, who fired xipon the royal troops, but subsequently submitted. Seringapatam is now included within the Ashtagram commis- sionership of Mysore. SEROUS MEMBRANES. See MEMBEANE. SERPENT, a musical wind instrument of cur- vilinear form, consisting of a conical tube of brass, divided into three parts, a mouthpiece, neck, and tail, and having six circular aper- tures for the production of the notes. Its compass extends from B flat below the bass staff to G, the treble clef line, and its use is confined to military bands. It was invented by Edme Guillaume of Auxerre in 1590. SERPENT, or Snake, the common name of the ophidian reptiles, including, according to the earlier naturalists, all air-breathing oviparous vertebrates, of elongated and rounded body, without limbs and creeping on the ventral sur- face. The body is very flexible and narrow, without distinct neck and with conical tail ; bones of the face movable, making the mouth very dilatable ; teeth sharp, separate, usually hooked on both jaws and almost always on the palate ; no eyelids, nor tympanum, nor apparent external auditory foramen ; skin ex- tensible, protected by thin scalea covered by an epidermis which is shed in a single piece by a process of inversion ; the plates of the under surface are larger, and used for pro- gression ; the male reproductive organs are double, concealed, and capable of protrusion, which has led some to the belief that snakes have posterior limbs ; they are oviparous, and a few are ovoviviparous, and the young undergo no metamorphosis after leaving the egg. The SERPENT 777 spine consists of very numerous and movable vertebrae, concave in front and hemispherically convex behind, distinguishable only into costal and caudal; the occipital condyle is single, and the jaws are connected by a very movable interarticular bone; the very numerous ribs are always distinct and free at the lower end, there being no sternum nor pectoral arch. The tongue is soft and fleshy, protractile, deep- ly forked, and held in a sheath ; the visceral organs are very long, closely fitting in the abdominal cavity ; only a single lung well de- veloped, generally the left, forming a cavity with spongy walls, and the hinder portion fre- quently without cells, its simple sac serving probably as a reservoir of air ; opening of the cloaca transverse. The vertebra? are rarely fewer than 100, and in some boas and pythons as many as 400, presenting the largest number among animals ; progression is almost always by lateral undulations, the ribs with their at- tached ventral plates being so many pairs of feet, like those of myriapods, in some boas more than 300 pairs ; the anterior limbs are wanting, but in some boas and pythons there are horny hooks appearing externally, sup- ported on a rudimentary pelvic arch ; with these few exceptions posterior limbs are want- ing. Most of the muscles are specially adapt- ed for acting on the spinal column, and are arranged in a very complicated manner, espe- cially those in connection with the ribs. The brain is small, and the spinal cord very long, with exceedingly numerous vertebral nerves. For other details of structure see COMPABA- TIVE ANATOMY, and REPTILES. They creep, spring, climb, swim, constrict, suspend them- selves by the tail, burrow, and raise the body almost erect. Like most reptiles, they are very sensitive to cold, becoming lethargic in winter ; the muscular irritability is remarkably great and persistent, depending on the spinal nervous agency and the inherent property of the muscular tissue ; the heart palpitates long after it has been removed from the body, and the jaws open and shut in the decapitated head. The senses of smell, hearing, and taste are very imperfect ; the eyes, without lids and constantly open, appear immovable ; the prin- cipal seat of touch is in the soft and exten- sile tongue. The scales offer every variety of color and marking, but in most the general color resembles the objects on which they habitually live ; the coloring matter is in the middle layer of the skin, the inner or dermis being strong and holding the scales, and the outer or epidermis shed several times a year ; the animal is dull and does not eat at the pe- riod of casting its skin. These characters are sufficient to distinguish serpents from large annelids, eel-like fishes, the scincoid and chal- cidian saurians, and many elongated batrachi- ans ; they are reptiles in the true sense of the word. For the systems of classification see HKRPETOLOGT ; they are generally divided into the two groups of the venomous and non-ven-