. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 180 THE SLENDER CECILIA. Among these remarkable animals, the orders multiply themselves rapidly. The Pseudo- phidia, or False Seipents, include some very curious species, whose position remained long unsettled. There is but one family, and all its memliers liave very long and cylindrical bodies, no limbs, a very short tail, and a smooth wrinkled skin, in which are embedded a multitude of minute scales. The two worm-like creatures, the White-bellied Csecilia and the Slender Csecilia, are
. Animate creation : popular edition of "Our living world" : a natural history. Zoology; Zoology. 180 THE SLENDER CECILIA. Among these remarkable animals, the orders multiply themselves rapidly. The Pseudo- phidia, or False Seipents, include some very curious species, whose position remained long unsettled. There is but one family, and all its memliers liave very long and cylindrical bodies, no limbs, a very short tail, and a smooth wrinkled skin, in which are embedded a multitude of minute scales. The two worm-like creatures, the White-bellied Csecilia and the Slender Csecilia, are good examples of this very remarkable family. The name Cjecilia is derived from a Latin word signifpug blindness, and is given to the creature because the eyes are always minute, and in some species are hidden under the skin. The White-BELLIED Cecilia inhabits Southern America, and, like the rest of its kin, bur- rows under the ground after the fashion of the earth-worm, to which it bears so strong an ex- ternal resemblance, preferring wet and marshy ground to dry soil. Its body is rather thick and cylindrical, and is surrounded by about one hundred and fifty incomplete rings. The muzzle is rounded and so is the tail. There are teeth in the jaws and on the palate, all of which are short, strong, and conical; the tongue has a curiously velvety feel to the touch. Below each nostril there is a small pit, sometimes taken for a second nostril. The color of the White-bellied Cfecilia is blackish, marbled with white along the under TIlKKE-TOKl) CONGO UtikKK-Muranopsis tndactyla. The Slender Cjecilia derives its name from its slight form. In this species the body is smooth throughout the greater part of its length, but towards the tail the skin is gathered into fifteeji circular folds pressed closely together. The muzzle is rather broad and rounded. The body of the Slender Cfecilia is extremely elongated, being about two feet in length, and not thicker than an ordinary goose-
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