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 

 masssd behind the pool — palmettoes, bayonet cacti, yuccas, 

 and the like, 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. 



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