CECILIIDIE (properly CJECILIIDIE), a family of Reptiles, which some naturalists have considered as belonging to the Batracbians, but which Cuvier, following Linnaeus, places in his third and last family (Les Serpents Nus) of the Ophidians, observing that those who placed it among the Batrachians did so without knowing whether the form underwent a metamorphosis or not. In the 'British Museum Catalogue' of Amphibia it stands as a family of the third order of that class (Pseudophidia). The following synopsis of the genera is given in the same work ;- A. Muzzle pitted.
1. Ccecilia : the pit under each nostril.
2. Siphonops : the pit before each eye ; body with broad rings.
3. Ichthyophis: the pit before each eye ; body with narrow rings.
B. Muzzle not pitted.
4. Rhinatrema.
Ccecilia was named by Linnaeus from the supposed blindness of the species. The eyes in fact are exceedingly small, and nearly hidden under the skin. Cuvier observes that in some species these organs are wanting altogether ; and the following is his description of the genus :—The skin is smooth, viscous, and striated with annular folds. It would appear altogether naked, but on dissection scales well formed are found in its thickness; but these scales are delicate, and disposed regularly in many transverse rows between the wrinkles of the skin, as Cuvier himself saw with certainty in C. glutinosa, C. albirentris, and other species. The head is depressed ; the vent is round, and very near the end of the body ; the ribs are too short to circumvent the-trunk, and the articulation of the bodies of the vertebra is effected by facets with hollow cones, the depression in which is filled with a gelatinous cartilage, as in the Fishes and in some of the Batmchians. Their skull is united to the first vertebra by two tubercles, as in the Batrachians, a mode of union approached by the A mphisbamm only among Serpents. Their maxillary bones cover the orbit, which is only pierced in the form of a small hole, and the temporal bones cover the temporal fossil, so that the head when examined from above presents only a continuous bony shield.
Their os hyoides, composed of three pairs of arches, may have led to the supposition that in early youth the bones supported gills. The maxillary and palatal teeth are arranged on two concentric lines, as in the Protei, but are often sharp and curved backwards, as in the true serpents. The opening of the nostrils is at the back of the palate, and the lower jaw has no moveable pedicle, while the tym panic bone is dovetailed (enchass.6) with the other bones into the shield of the skull. The only ossiculum auditui, or auditory bone, is a small plate upon the fenestra ovalis, as is the case with the Salamanders.
The auricle of the heart in these animals is not divided sufficiently deep to be regarded as double, but the second lung is as small as it usually is in the other serpents. The liver is divided into a great number of transverse leaves (feuillets). In their intestines Cuvier states that there is to be found a quantity of vegetable matters, vegetable earth, and sand.
The following species are given in the 'British Museum Catalogue:'— C. gracilis, a native of South America. It is the C. verrniformis of Shaw.
C. ttntaculata. It is the C. albirentris of Daudin.
C. compressicauda, a native of Guyana.
C. rostrata, a native of South America.
C. oxyura, from Malabar.
C. squalostoma, from Africa.
There are two species of Sipltonops : S interrupta (C. annulata, Mikan). It is a native of the Brazils. S. Mexicana is a species found in Mexico.
The genus Ichthyophis has but one species, the I. glutinosus (C. glutinosa of Linnaeus). It is a native of Ceylon.
The C. birittata of Cuvier constitutes the genus Rhinatrenta. The only species, R. birittatunt, is a native of Cayenne.