For the American Marine Shells: Bulletin No. 37. Published by the United States National Museum, at Washington.
For shells in general: "The Shell Book." Published by Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N.Y.
On the Pacific Coast the "West Coast Shells," by Prof. Josiah Keep of Mills College, will be found very useful.
REPTILES
By Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, Curator National Museum
By reptiles we understand properly a certain class of vertebrate or backboned animals, which, on the whole, may be described as possessing scales or horny shields since most of them may be distinguished by this outer covering, as the mammals by their hair and the birds by their feathers. Such animals as thousand-legs, scorpions, tarantulas, etc., though often erroneously referred to as reptiles, do not concern us in this connection. Among the living reptiles we distinguish four separate groups, the crocodiles, the turtles, the lizards, and the snakes.
The crocodiles resemble lizards in shape, but are very much larger and live only in the tropics and the adjacent regions of the temperate zone. To this order belongs our North American alligator, which inhabits the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and the coast country along the Atlantic Ocean as far north as North Carolina. They are hunted for their skin, which furnishes an excellent leather for traveling bags, purses, etc., and because of the incessant pursuit are now becoming quite rare in many localities where formerly they were numerous. The American crocodile, very much like the one occurring in the river Nile, is also found at the extreme southern end of Florida.
The turtles are easily recognized by the bony covering which encases their body, and into which most species can withdraw their heads and legs for protection. This bony box is usually covered with horny plates, but in a large group, the so-called soft-shell turtles, the outer covering is a soft skin, thus forming a {98} notable exception to the rule that reptiles are characterized by being covered with scales or plates. While most of the turtles live in fresh water or on land, a few species pass their lives in the open ocean, only coming ashore during the breeding season to deposit their eggs. Some of these marine turtles grow to an enormous size, sometimes reaching a weight of over eight hundred pounds. One of them is much sought for on account of the delicacy of its flesh; another because of the thickness and beauty of its horny plates which furnish the so-called tortoise-shell, an important article of commerce. Turtles appear to reach a very old age, specimens having been known to have lived several hundred years. The box tortoise of our woods, the musk turtles, the snapping turtles are familiar examples of this order, while the terrapin, which lives in brackish ponds and swamps along our sea-coasts, is famous as a table delicacy.
Harlequin snake
The lizards are four-legged reptiles, usually of small size, living on the ground or in the trees, out very rarely voluntarily entering water. The so-called water lizards are not lizards at all, but belong to the salamanders and are distinguished by having a naked body not covered with scales. Most of the true lizards are of very graceful form, exceedingly quick at running; others display the most gorgeous coloration which, in many of them, such as the chameleons, changes according to the light, or the temperature, or the mood of the animal. Not all of them have four legs, however, there being a strong tendency to develop legless species which then externally become so much like snakes that they are told apart with some difficulty. Thus our so-called glass-snake, common in the Southern states, is not a snake at all, but a lizard, as we may easily see by observing the ear openings on each side of the head, as no snake has ears. This beautiful animal is also known as the joint-snake, and both names have reference to the exceeding brittleness of its long tail, which often breaks in many pieces in the hands of the enemy trying to capture the lizard. That these pieces ever join and heal together is of course a silly fable. As a matter of fact, the body in a comparatively short time grows a new tail, which, however, is much shorter and stumpier than the old one. The new piece is often of a different color from the rest of the body and {99} greatly resembles a "horn," being conical and pointed, and has thus given rise to another equally silly fable, viz., that of the horn snake, or hoop snake, which is said to have a sting in its tail and to be deadly poisonous. The lizards are all perfectly harmless, except the sluggish Gila monster (pronounced Heela, named from the Gila River in Arizona) which lives in the deserts of Arizona and Mexico, and whose bite may be fatal to man. The poison glands are situated at the point of the lower jaw, and the venom is taken up by the wound while the animal hangs on to its victim with the tenacity of a bulldog. All the other lizards are harmless in spite of the dreadful stories told about the deadly quality of some of the species in various parts of the country.