see with species belonging to the same group, as in so many previous cases, the same character either confined to the males, or more largely developed in them than in the females, or again equally developed in both sexes. The little lizards of
the genus Draco, which glide through the air on their rib-supported parachutes, and which in the beauty of their colours baffle description, are furnished with skinny appendages to the throat "like the wattles of gallinaceous birds." These become erected when the animal is excited. They occur in both sexes, but are best developed when the male arrives at maturity, at which age the middle appendage is sometimes twice as long as the head. Most of the species likewise have a low crest running along the neck; and this is much more developed in the full-grown males, than in the females or young males.[1] A Chinese species is said to live
in pairs during the spring; "and if one is caught, the other falls from the tree to the ground, and allows itself to be captured with impunity,"—I presume from despair.[2]
There are other and much more remarkable differences between the sexes of certain lizards. The male of Ceratophora aspera bears on the extremity of his snout an appendage half as long as the head. It is cylindrical, covered with scales, flexible, and apparently capable of erection: in the female it is quite rudimental. In a second species of the same genus a terminal scale forms a minute horn on the summit of the flexible appendage;
- ↑ All the foregoing statements and quotations, in regard to Cophotis, Sitana and Draco, as well as the following facts in regard to Ceratophora and Chamæleon, are from Dr. Günther himself, or from his magnificent work on the 'Reptiles of British India, Ray Soc. 1864, pp. 122, 130, 135.
- ↑ Mr. Swinhoe, 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' 1870, p. 240.
