498 



NATURE 



{Sept. 5, 1878 



carefully told with an able pencil, and the position of the 

 head in relation to the first few feet of the body is admir- 

 ably given. Without reflecting on British woodcutters, 

 for they are for the most part beneath artistic contempt, 



the German engraving is often exquisite. A weird scene, 

 where over water-lilies a moss-grown branch, half hidden 

 in spiders webs and great orchid blooms, supports an 

 angry Draco rolans, is capital. A butterfly is settling 



down within the creature's reach, but a fellow reptile has 

 made its spring, and with expanded rib parachutes, is 

 about to seize the insect's wing. The mimeticism of 

 plant and animal is so fully developed by the artist, that 



really one must look hard at the picture before its 

 faithfully rendered details strike the eye. A group of 

 chameleons on a mimosa, one putting out its long club- 

 ended tongue and the others glaring with their bulged 



