THE FLYING LIZARD, OR DRAGON.
(Draco volans.)
The Flying Dragons, those terrible creatures described by the older naturalists, are undoubtedly fabulous and, indeed, impossible creatures, and either entirely products of the imagination of the vulgar, or founded upon specimens manufactured for the express purpose of taking in the naturalist, who, in old times, was a little too ready to believe in wonders of this kind. The wings of a bat attached to a body and legs made up from half a dozen animals would furnish a capital Dragon in former times. Modern naturalists apply the name of Dragon to some little lizards inhabiting the East Indies, and which have none of those terrible qualities ascribed to the fabled monsters of antiquity. They are related to the Iguanas, but have on each side of the body a membranous expansion, stiffened by the prolongation into it of the first six false ribs; this acts as a sort of parachute, and enables the little creatures, not to fly, but to leap or glide through the air to considerable distances between one tree and another. They live entirely in trees, and feed on insects.
