Book excerpt: Excerpt from North American Herpetology, or a Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States, Vol. 3 So far the true serpents agree in general in their characters and organization; but in some is developed an entirely new set of organs, which invest their possessors with singular and noxious properties. This peculiarity of structure leads to a very natural division of the serpent tribe into two great sections - venomous and non-venomous serpents. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.