INAXTGFRAL ADDRESS 



ox 



REPTILE LIFE IX CAPTIVITY. 



By JOHN H. O'CONNELL, L.R.C.P., 

 President. 



In selecting reptile life as the subject of this 

 evening's address, I propose to deal with the matter from 

 the Natural History side of the question, and to show 

 how far it is possible to approximate their artificial to 

 their natural conditions. It is a frequent reproach 

 against tliis group that they are sluggish and more or 

 less inert, and in many cases this is so because tlie 

 conditions of their captivity are entirely unsuitable to 

 their lives. This group is not without its fascination, 

 and the romantic weirdness of its past history awakens 

 many an echo in the fairy tales of childhood and the 

 folk-lore of nations. 



What an interesting ancestry to look back on, in the 

 dim and distant ages of the past, in the Jurassic period, 

 when vast tracts of primeval forests clothed the earth 

 with a plant life long since gone ; the period of the 

 passing of the giant fern-like forms, and the great horse- 

 tails of the Carboniferous swamps, and the coming of the 

 Cycads. The glory of this race has gone into the long 

 and never-ending night where oblivion, in enshrouding 

 the past history of the race, has almost closed the book 

 of nature and, indeed, would have done so had they not 

 literally left "foot prints in the sands of time"; and 

 had not the casts of their bones been taken first in mud 

 and afterwards perpetuated in rock. 



