'Chap. XII. 
REPTILES. 
29 
colour; nor do I know that the males fight together, 
though this is probable, for some kinds make a prodi- 
gious display before the females. Bartram describes 
the male alligator as striving to win the female by 
splashing and roaring in the midst of a lagoon, swollen 
to an extent ready to burst, with his head and tail 
lifted up, he spins or twirls round on the surface of 
the water, like an Indian chief rehearsing his feats 
of war.” During the season of love, a musky odour 
is emitted by the submaxillary glands of the crocodile, 
and pervades their haunts.^® 
Ojohidia , — I have little to say about Snakes. Dr. 
Gunther informs me that the males are always smaller 
than the females, and generally have longer and slen- 
derer tails ; but he knows of no other difference in 
external structure. In regard to colour. Dr. Gunther 
can almost always distinguish the male from the female 
by his more strongly-pronounced tints; thus the black 
zigzag band on the back of the male English viper is 
more distinctly defined than in the female. The differ- 
ence is much plainer in the Eattle-snakes of N. America, 
the male of which, as the keeper in the Zoological 
Gardens shewed me, can instantly be distinguished from 
the female by having more lurid yellow about its whole 
body. In S. Africa the Bucephalus capensis presents an 
analogous difference, for the female is never so fully 
variegated with yellow on the sides, as the male.” 
The male of the Indian Dipsas cynodon, on the other 
hand, is blackish-brown, with the belly partly black, 
whilst the female is reddish or yellowish-olive with the 
belly either uniform yellowish or marbled Avith black. 
^ Travels thimigli Carolina/ &c., 1791, p. 128. 
Owen, ‘ Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. i. 1866, p. 615. 
Sir Andrew Smith, ‘ Zoolog. of S. Africa : Reptilia,’ 1849, pi. x. 
