SECTION III.—THE REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS. 
THE REPTILE HOUSE, No. 34. 
The Reptile House was the first large building erected in 
the Zoological Park. It represents an earnest effort to pre- 
sent carefully selected examples of the reptilian Orders, in a 
manner which may afford the visitor and the student a gen- 
eral view of the important groups of living reptiles. 
The length of the Reptile House, over all, is 146 feet, and 
its greatest width is 100 feet. It is constructed of buff mot- 
tled brick, combined with granite and Indiana limestone. 
In the ornamental cornice of terra cotta, reptilian forms 
modelled by Mr. A. Phimister Proctor, the well-known ani- 
mal sculptor, constitute an important feature. The build- 
ing is roofed with slate, heated by hot water, and cost, with 
its cages, about $50,000. It is beautifully situated on the 
edge of a forest of primeval oaks, very near the geograph- 
ical center of the Park. 
The great center hall is unbroken by a single column, and 
at one end it opens across the Crocodile Pool and its sand- 
banks, through three huge arches, into the green, jungly 
mass of the conservatory. Of the tropical vegetation 
massed behind the pool—palmettoes, bayonet cacti, yuceas, 
and the lke, and the tillandsias, Spanish moss, resurrection 
ferns, and butterfly orchids,—nearly the whole came from 
Florida, along with five alligators which were the first 
occupants of the pool. 
In effect, the central hall appears to be 115 feet in length, 
by 40 feet wide, exclusive of the cages. But, large as this 
building is, it would be an easy matter to fill all its avail- 
able space with the reptiles of North America alone, choos- 
ing only the handsome and showy forms. As we contem- 
plate the great number of species in our own reptilian 
fauna, the thought occurs, what can we do with the rep- 
tiles of the Old World? Manifestly, the only proper course 
is to choose from the reptiles of the world the forms which 
will make for our visitors and students the most instructive 
and attractive series of important types. 
171 
