812 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



disappointed after they have missed it; pursuing one another; 

 inflating their dewlaps and depressing their crests when enraged, 

 they fly away spasmodically to drop a few yards farther along, 

 down upon another tree, along which they continue their evo- 

 lutions. In some dragons the tympanum is visible, in others it 

 is hidden by a fold of the skin. A special genus (Dranuncidus) 

 has been constituted for the latter, while the former compose the 

 genus Draco. This genus is represented by six species, of which 

 three inhabit the island of Java ; one, recognizable by its vertical 

 nostrils, is peculiar to continental India ; the fifth is native to the 

 island of Timor ; and the sixth is found at Pulu Penang. The 

 Dranunculus inhabits Amboyna in the Moluccas, Celebes, and 

 the Philippine Islands. 



The dragons are the only existing reptiles that possess organs 

 of aerial locomotion. Other saurians have folds of skin along the 

 flanks ; but in no other of them is this disposition so developed as 

 in a curious geckotian, the Ptychozoon homacephalum of Java 

 and other Sunda Islands. A broad membrane extending from the 

 temples to the tail, where it is divided into slit lobes, is broad- 

 ened along the flanks. Without reaching the dimensions of the 

 patagium of the dragons, or possessing its rigid supports, it rep- 

 resents a kind of parachute, the importance of which may have 

 been augmented by long use ; or else we may regard these exten- 

 sions of the skin as survivals of a provision which sedentary or 

 profoundly changed habits have rendered useless. 



It may be added that the livery of the Ptychozoon is of such a 

 nature as to assure it all the advantages of protective resemblance. 

 The green color, yellowish on the upper side of the body, greenish 

 along the flanks, varied with brown lines or transverse brown 

 fasciae, constitutes a general tone which becomes, with wonderful 

 ease, confounded with the bark and parasitic plants with which 

 the trees are covered where they pass their lives. Translated for 

 the Popular Science Monthly from La Nature. 



[To this account of these interesting animals we add a por- 

 trait of the frilled lizard (Chlamydosaurus Kingii), which pos- 

 sesses an appendage of different structure from the wings of the 

 dragons, but at the first view reminding one of them. The frill, 

 which is its conspicuous ornament, is covered with scales and 

 is toothed on the edge. It does not come of full size till the 

 animal is grown, and increases according to Wood in regu- 

 lar proportion to the age of the owner. In the young it does 

 not even reach the base of the fore-limbs, while in the adult it 

 extends well beyond them. M. F. Mocquard, who observed one 

 of the animals during several weeks, is of the opinion that it 

 serves the lizard as a kind of parachute, sustaining it during its 



