Identifier: sketchesofnatura00tenn (find matches)
Title: Sketches of the natural history of Ceylon : with narratives and anecdotes illustrative of the habits and instincts of the mammalia, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. : including a monograph of the elephant and a description of the modes of capturing and training it with engravings from original drawings
Year: 1868 (1860s)
Authors: Tennent, James Emerson, Sir, 1804-1869 Metcalf Collection (North Carolina State University). NCRS
Subjects: Zoology Elephants
Publisher: London : Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
eelasticity of its substance. Not having access to a livingspecimen, which would afford the opportunity of testingconjecture, we are left to infer from the internal structureof this horn, that it is an erectile organ which, in mo-ments of irritation, will swell like the comb of a cock.This opinion as to its physiological nature is confirmedby the remarkable circumstance that, like the rudiment-ary comb of the hen and young cocks, the female andthe immature males of the ceratophora have the hornexceedingly small. In mature females of eight inches inlength (and the females appear always to be smallerthan the males), the horn is only one half or one linelong; while in immature males five inches in length, itis one line and a half. Among the specimens sent from Ceylon by Dr. Kelaart,and now in the British Museum, there is one which soremarkably differs from C. Stoddartii, that it attractedmy attention, by the peculiar form of this rostral ap-pendage. Pr. GuNTiiER pronounced it to be a new
Text Appearing After Image:
Chap. IX.J THE GECKO. 281 species ; and Dr. Gray concurring in this opinion, tbe)^have done me the honour to call it Ceratophora Ten-nentii. Its horn somewhat resembles the comb of acock not only in its internal structure, but also in itsexternal appearance; it is nearly six lines long by twobroad, slightly compressed, soft, flexile, and extensible,and covered with a corrugated, granular skin. It bearsno resemblance to the depressed rostral hump of Lyvio-cephcdus^ and the differences of the new species fromthe latter lizard may be easily seen from the annexeddrawing and the notes given below. Geckoes.—The most familiar and attractive of thelizard class are the Geckoes-, that frequent the sitting-rooms, and being furnished with pads to each toe, they areenabled to ascend perpendicular walls and adhere to glassand ceilings. Being nocturnal in their habits, the pupil ofthe eye, instead of being circular as in the diurnal species,is linear and vertical like that of the cat. As soon asev

Note About Images