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POPULAR OFFICIAL GUIDE. 



by side in our Reptile House afford striking examples of 

 protective coloration. The Diamond-Back Rattler of Florida 

 and the South is yellow, brown, and black, to match the 

 checkers of sunbeam and shadow that fall upon the sands 

 under the palmetto leaves. 



THE BATRACHIANS, OR AMPHIBIANS. 



Among the many wonders of Nature, none is more in- 

 teresting than those forms which serve to connect the great 

 groups of vertebrate animals, by bridging over what other- 

 wise would seem like impassable chasms. 



Between the birds and the reptiles there is a fossil bird, 

 called the Archasopteryx, with a long, vertebrated, lizard- 

 like tail, which is covered with feathers, and the Hesperornis, 

 a water bird with teeth, but no wings, which inhabited the 

 shores of the great western lake which has already yielded 

 to American paleontologists a great number of most remark- 

 able fossil forms. 



Between the reptiles and the fishes, stretches a wonderful 

 chain of living links by which those two Classes of verte- 

 brates are so closely and unbrokenly united, and by such 

 an array of forms, that they constitute an independent Class, 

 the Batrachia, or Amphibia. In the transition from water 

 to land, from fins and gills to legs and lungs, Nature has 

 made some strange combinations. In some instances the 

 fins, legs, lungs and gills have become so mixed that several 

 notable misfits have resulted, and in some cases we see gills 

 and legs going together, while in other lungs and fins are 

 associated. 



The Reptile House contains about two dozen species of 

 Amphibians, and it is reasonaly certain that this number 

 will be maintained and increased. They are to be found 

 in small aquarium eases, ranged along the south side and 

 eastern end of the Main Hall. 



The Bullfrog, (Rana catesbiana), is a fair representative 

 of the Batrachians which stand nearest to the true land- 

 going reptiles. During the early stages of its existence it is 

 in turn, a fin-tailed tadpole with no legs, a short-tailed tad- 

 pole with a pair of front legs, a shorter-tailed tadpole with 

 four legs, and finally a fully-developed, land-going frog 

 with a voice like a small bull, and no tail whatever. Of the 

 genus Rana, there are five species in the eastern United 

 States, several of which inhabit the Zoological Park. 



