REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS OF TEXAS 



compilers waste valuable space with descriptions that may 

 be found in both scientific and general works on the subject; 

 these descriptions being merely repetitions to the specialist 

 and in many cases almost unintelligible to those laymen 

 who require a more popular work. 



Two excellent books of a popular character have been pub- 

 lished by Doubleday, Page & Co., in their "Nature Library." 

 These are "The Reptile Book," by Raymond L. Ditmars, 

 and "The Frog Book," by Miss Mary C. Dickerson. These 

 works contain magnificent illustrations and splendid popu- 

 lar descriptions of all but a very few of the crocodilians, 

 turtles, lizards, snakes and frogs of North America. Un- 

 fortunately, no popular work on the tailed amphibians has 

 ever been published. For technical descriptions of these 

 animals, the reader is referred to the splendid work of Cope 

 on "The Batrachia of North America," published in 1889 as 

 a Bulletin of the United States National Museum. This 

 book is rare, but copies are to be found in many public and 

 college libraries. 



For more technical descriptions of the reptiles, exclusive 

 of the turtles, than are contained in Ditmars' book, refer- 

 ence may be made to Cope's "Crocodilians, Lizards and 

 Snakes of North America," published in the Report of the 

 National Museum for 1898. This can be obtained from al- 

 most any dealer in second-hand books, either as a paper 

 bound separate or bound in with the full report. 



At the present time, the popular work of Ditmars above 

 mentioned contains the only collected descriptions of the 

 North American turtles, and these are entirely too brief to 

 be of much value to the specialist. If one is greatly inter- 

 ested in the Testudinata and can get access to Volume I 

 of Prof. Agazziz's "Contributions to the Natural History of 

 the United States," entitled "The Geographical Distribution 

 of the Testudinata," and the several papers by George Baur 

 published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical 

 Society, he will find them to contain a wealth of valuable in- 

 formation. There are many other books and papers in the 

 bibliography that will prove of great value to the student 

 if he is in a position to consult them. This bibliography is 



