Flying Lizards.
Fig. 30.—Flying Lizard (Draco volans).
Flying Lizards (Draco) have the head small, the nostrils in a scale, tubular, on the side ridge; tympanum white and opaque. They live on trees, walking with agility with their wings folded by their sides. These wings they expand and use as a parachute when they throw themselves upon their prey from the tops of trees or other elevated places. But they cannot move them as birds do their wings. These remarkable appendages also serve to drive away insects.
[The fabulous Dragons of the ancient Greeks were Serpents or Lizards with remarkably piercing sight, which guarded treasures and devoured men. The Dragons of mediæval artists were frightful and fantastic beings, one half Bat and the other half quadruped or Serpent. The little Saurians which now bear the once dreaded name are no less interesting, although they are no longer monsters; they are distinguished from all other reptiles by a kind of wing, which is a large fold of skin, or membrane, on each side of the body. These wings are entirely independent of the other members, being sustained by six false ribs, which do not surround the abdomen, but rather extend horizontally. They are the only existing examples of our day of that organic arrangement which distinguished the reptiles known under the name of Pterodactyli, and which belonged to the jurassique period of geology.
Dr. Gray divides the Draconina into three genera, namely:—
I. Dracos, having the ears naked, nostrils below the fore ridge, of which three species are described—viz., D. volans, the Flying Lizard ([Fig. 30]), having the scales of the back broad, generally smooth, those of the throat granular; wings grey, fulvous, or brown, spotted and marbled with black, sometimes forming four or five oblique black bands near the outer edge; the sides with a series of large keeled scales: the Timor Flying Lizard, D. viridis Timorensis of Schlegel; and the Fringed Flying Lizard, D. fimbriatus, keeled.
II. Draconella, of which there are two species, one D. Dussumieri, having the nape crested; and D. hæmatopogon, the Red-throated Dragon, without crest on the nape.
III. Dracunculus, of which five species are described—namely, D. quinquefasciatus, the Banded Flying Lizard, nape not crested, having a longitudinal fold; D. lineatus, having the nape crested, the ears slightly concave; D. ornatus, wings grey, reticulated with black, and having broad black bands at the edge; the Spotted Winged Dragon, D. maculatus, grey, and the wings black spotted; and D. spilopterus, having the wing reddish near the body.]