P E E F A C E. 



The rooms in which the dry and mounted specimens of Reptiles 

 and Fishes are exhibited are two parallel galleries of the ground- 

 floor approached from the Bird Gallery. 



The exhibition of mounted specimens of Reptiles offers greater 

 difficulties than that of the. other classes of Vertebrate animals. 

 Only the larger and hard-skinned forms, like Crocodiles and 

 Tortoises, can be preserved in a dried state without distortion of 

 their natural features ; whilst every attempt at reproducing the 

 finely moulded body of a Lizard or Snake, or at restoring the 

 exquisite arrangement of their scales, has ended in failure. Neither 

 has plastic art of ancient or modern times succeeded in producing 

 a faithful or life-like representation of a Reptile. 



Fishes lend themselves more readily to exhibition in a dried 

 state than Reptiles ; and some of the mounted specimens, especially 

 those prepared by the taxidermists of the Madras Museum, leave 

 nothing to be desired as regards the shape of the body or the pre- 

 servation of the various external organs. But we do not possess 

 the means of preserving the beautiful colours of many marine 

 fishes, especially of the Tropics, which rival in this respect those 

 of the most brightly coloured of Birds. In order to give some 

 idea — inadequate though it may be — of the richness and singu- 

 larity of pattern of the coloration of these fishes, a few have been 



b2 



