§ VI. COLLECTION OF REPTILES. 



Reptiles do not arrest our attention in an equal 

 degree with birds, either by their elegance of 

 form or variety of colours; most of these ani- 

 mals are of an unpleasant or repulsive shape ; 

 and the brilliant speckles, which embellished 

 many of them whilst they were living, have 

 completely faded since their death. Rut the sin- 

 gularity and variety of their forms, and their 

 different properties, some fatal to life, and others 

 capable of being rendered subservient to the 

 wants of man, give to the animals comprised in 

 this collection, at least an equal degree of in- 

 terest. Who has not heard of the sea tortoise, 

 of the crocodiles of the Nile, of the pithons of 

 India, of the boas of America ? And who would 

 disdain the examination of these animals, many 

 of whose species are celebrated, either for their 

 peculiar habits, for the phenomena which they 

 exhibit, for the terror which they inspire, or for 

 the fables of which they have been the subject ? 

 That the study of reptiles has become almost 



