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Chap. XII.
Reptiles.
351

the sexes unite.[1] With the huge tortoise of the Galapagos Islands (Testudo nigra) the males are said to grow to a larger size than the females: during the pairing-season, and at no other time, the male utters a hoarse bellowing noise, which can be heard at the distance of more than a hundred yards; the female, on the other hand, never uses her voice.[2]

With the Testudo elegans of India, it is said "that the combats of the males may be heard at some distance, from the noise they produce in butting against each other."[3]

Crocodilia.—The sexes apparently do not differ in colour; nor do I know that the males fight together, though this is probable, for some kinds make a prodigious display before the females. Bartram[4] 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 its 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.[5]

Ophidia.—Dr. Günther informs me that the males are always smaller than the females, and generally have longer and slenderer tails; but he knows of no other difference in external structure. In regard to colour, he 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 difference is much plainer in the rattle-snakes of N. America, the male of which, as the keeper in the Zoological Gardens shewed me, can at once 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."[6] 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 with black. In the Tragops dispar of the same country, the male is bright green, and the

  1. Mr. C. J. Maynard, 'The American Naturalist,' Dec. 1869, p. 555
  2. See my 'Journal of Researches during the Voyage of the " Beagle,"' 1845, p. 384.
  3. Dr. Günther, 'Reptiles of British India,' 1864, p. 7.
  4. 'Travels through Carolina,' &c., 1791, p. 128.
  5. Owen, 'Anatomy of Vertebrates,' vol. i. 1866, p. 615.
  6. Sir Andrew Smith, 'Zoolog. of S. Africa: Reptilia,' 1849, pl. x.