ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIOxN'S. 
[upper 
SECOND EOOM. 
The Wall Cases contain the stuffed exotic Reptiles and 
Batrachia ; in the Table Cases are contained the hard parts of 
the Radiated Animals, including the Sea-Eggs, Sea-Stabs, and 
Encrinites. 
The Wall Cases 1-8 contain the order of Lizards ; exemplified 
by the Monitors or Varanus of Africa, India, and Australia ; the 
Heloderms of Mexico, which have grooves in the back of the teeth like 
the poison-fangs of serpents ; the Safeguards, large lizards of the 
tropical parts of America. The Tuatera {Hatteria), the largest reptile 
of New Zealand. The Seines (Case 5), generally small, and polished: 
some have distinct and strong legs, and others only traces of them ; 
in the Blind Worms the bones of the legs are hid under the skin. 
Case 6, 7. The Guanas, many of which are highly esteemed as food, 
are natives of America, and, like the Chameleons, have the power of 
rapidly changing their colour; the large marine Iguanas from the 
Galapogos Islands, one of which feeds on sea-weeds ; the diminu- 
tive Dragons of India, with the skin of their sides expauded upon 
long slender ribs, in the form of wings, which spread out and support 
the creatures as they leap from branch to branch. In Case 8 is 
the Moloch of Australia, covered with large spines. The Chlamy- 
dosaurus, or frilled Lizard of North Australia, with a large folded frill 
round its neck, like a Queen Elizabeth's ruff, which it can elevate when 
excited. The Chameleons of Africa and India, celebrated for the rapidity 
with which they change their colours ; they live exclusively on trees 
and bushes and feed on insects, which they catch by protruding their 
long tongue ; only a small part of the eye is visible, the rest being 
covered with skin; the eyes move independently of each other. 
Cases 9-13. Snakes or Serpents. Case 9. The Poisonous 
Serpents, such as the Rattle-snakes of the New World, which have a 
rattle at the end of the tail ; this rattle is formed of a series of hard 
horny joints, fitting loosely one into another, which the animal can 
shake at pleasure ; the Vipers, such as the Adder, the only venomous 
reptile of the British Islands ; the Puff-adders of Africa, so named 
from their power of inflating their bodies when irritated. Cases 10, 
1 1. The Boas, with rudiments of legs ; they are not venomous, and kill 
their prey by constriction, twisting the end of their prehensile tail 
round a tree, and thus increasing their power over the animal when 
encircled by the folds of their body ; their gape is enormous. A large 
specimen of the Anaconda (Boa murium) commonly, but not quite 
correctly, called Boa constrictor, is exhibited in a separate case in the 
middle of the room. It is a native of the hottest parts of South 
America, where it lives on the banks of rivers and lakes watching for 
its prey, which consists chiefly in animals coming to the water to 
drink. The specimen exhibited is 29 feet long ; but this kind grows 
to a still larger size, and is undoubtedly the largest kind of snakes in 
existence. It has been mounted in the act of seizing a Pekkary, but 
