FLYING LIZAEDS. 133 



and use as a parachute when they throw themselves upon their 

 prey from the tops of trees or other elevated places. But they 

 cannot move them as birds do their wings. These remarkable 

 appendages also serve to drive away insects. 



[The fabulous Dragons of the ancient Greeks were Serpents or 

 Lizards with remarkably piercing sight, which guarded treasures 

 and devoured men. The Dragons of mediseval artists were frightful 

 and fantastic beings, one half Bat and the other half quadruped 

 or Serpent. The little Saurians which now bear the once 

 dreaded name are no less interesting, although they are no longer 

 monsters ; they are distinguished from all other reptiles by a kind 

 of wing, which is a large fold of skin, or membrane, on each side of 

 the body. These wings are entirely independent of the other 

 members, being sustained by six false ribs, which do not surround 

 the abdomen, but rather extend horizontall3^ They are the only 

 existing examples of our day of that organic arrangement which 

 distinguished the reptiles known under the name of Pterodact^li, 

 and which belonged to the jurassique period of geology. 



Dr. Gray divides the Draconina into three genera, namely : — 



I. Dracos, having the ears naked, nostrils below the fore ridge, 

 of which three species are described — viz., IJ. volans, the Flying 

 Lizard (Fig. 30), having the scales of the back broad, generally 

 smooth, those of the throat granular ; wings grey, fulvous, or brown, 

 spotted and marbled with black, sometimes forming four or five 

 oblique black bands near the outer edge ; the sides with a series of 

 large keeled scales : the Timor Flying Lizard, D. viridis Timorensis 

 of Schlegel ; and the Fringed Flj-ing Lizard, D.jimhriatus, keeled. 



II. Draconella, of which there are two species, one D. Dussianieri, 

 having the nape crested ; and D. hcematopogon, the Red-throated 

 Dragon, without crest on the nape. 



III. Dracunculus, of which five species are described — namely, 

 D. quinquefasciatus, the Banded Flying Lizard, nape not crested, 

 having a longitudinal fold ; D. lineatus, having the nape crested, 

 the ears slightly concave ; D. ornatus, wings grey, reticulated 

 with black, and having broad black bands at the edge ; the Spotted 

 Winged Dragon, D. macidatus, gre^^, and the wings black spotted ; 

 and D. spdopterus, having the wing reddish near the body.] 



