1902 Reptile Studies 177 



When this plumage is at its best the young birds are hatched, 

 and then the pkime-hunter comes with his gun and shoots 

 down all the parent birds, leaving the miserable young birds 

 to perish from starvation and cold. If only women would 

 give up wearing "ospreys" there would be no demand for 

 them, and consequently the rapid extermination of the birds 

 would cease. 



Reptile Studies. 



By Gerald Leighton, M.D. 



IV. Summer — The Season of Reproduction. 



In our last issue we saw that the season of spring was 

 marked by the resumption of activity on the part of 

 reptiles, and we especially noted the spring sloughing, the 

 process of feeding, and finally the fact that pairing takes 

 place at the end of that season. Following out the life- 

 history of these creatures, we now turn our attention to 

 the phenomena of reproduction which are associated with 

 the summer season, and also partly with autumn. 



Reproduction in reptiles takes place in one of two 

 ways : either by the deposition of eggs at an early stage 

 of development, or, secondly, by the bringing forth of 

 young fully developed and able to look after themselves 

 from birth. Those reptiles which reproduce by the former 

 method are termed oviparous, while those which bring forth 

 their 3'oung alive are said to be viviparous or ovo-viviparous. 

 The two last terms are synonymous, but the last is perhaps 

 the better, as it expresses the additional fact that the young 

 have been carried to full time in an egg-membrane. We 

 have examples of both of these methods of reproduction in 

 the six British reptiles,^ in fact both our snakes and lizards 

 include oviparous and ovo-viviparous members. It may 

 perhaps be convenient to indicate at once how this feature 

 is distributed among them. 



^ The green lizard and the wall lizard of the Channel Isles are excluded. 



