History of British Reptiles (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from History of British Reptiles

In the Chelonians, or Tortoises, and in the Ophidians, or Serpent tribe, the extremes of these different types of organization are exhibited. In the common European land Tortoise, Testudo Gram, which may be selected as a familiar example of the former group, the whole struc ture of the skeleton is brought into the most compact and solid state. The bones of the cranium and face are consolidated into a single and. Immovable case, with scarcely the vestige of sutures showing the separation of the different centres of ossification upon which it has been formed; there are no teeth, but the margins Of the upper and of the lower jaw are covered by a horny beak, the latter being received into a groove of the former, and thus closing like the lid of a box; then the whole of the dorsal vertebrae, the ribs, the bones representing the sterno-costal cartilages, and the broad united sternum, are altogether compacted into a case of bone, without any separation between the parts of which it is composed. The anterior and posterior extremities are fully developed, but, instead of being placed exterior to the thorax, they are all of them contained within its cavity, and even the bones of the feet are only extended beyond the horny box which protects them, when the animal is employing them in progression.

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