HA RD WICKK S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



121 



MY DRAWING-ROOM PETS. 



By CLARA KINGSFORD. 



Part III. 



;HEN Tommy had 

 lived with me 

 about one year, I 

 acquired another 

 specimen of Z. 

 vivipara, which I 

 named Georgie, 

 and thinking they 

 would be agree- 

 able companions 

 for each other, 

 I introduced the 

 latter into the 

 former's home, but 

 Tommy had too 

 long reigned su- 

 preme. He most 

 violently assault- 

 ed Georgie, and 

 I had to rescue 

 the poor crea- 

 ture, half-dead with fright, and provide him a sepa- 

 rate home. I always kept their globes in close 

 proximity to each other, and it was truly absurd 

 to see, the first thing each morning, the pugilistic 

 attitude that they assumed towards each other. They 

 had a sham fight, the glass intervening preventing it 

 from being a real one, and it was not until some few 

 weeks had elapsed that their pugilistic spirit gave 

 way to a more amicable one 



Georgie soon followed in Tommy's wake, and took 

 to meat as he had done, only in a much shorter time. 

 It needed to be a labour of love to feed these two 

 Lacertians, and it required no little patience and 

 strategy, for neither would eat a piece without it was 

 previously dangled before his eyes for some little 

 time, but as everything comes to an end, so did this. 

 As time went on, they took their food more readily, 

 and upon one occasion of my being from home, and 

 about a year and a half after the advent of the latter, 

 their serve of meat being placed before them, they 

 No. 270.— June 1887. 



found that they must either take it or leave it, they 

 very wisely chose the former course. 



How keen is the optic, the auditory, or the gustative 

 nerve of the Z. vivipara; how it loves to watch all 

 that is going on around it ; how quick to mark the 

 slightest insect form, and bright colours attract its 

 attention. Its ear is turned at the lowest sound ; 

 music hath charms for it. How rigid with attention 

 it will become whilst listening to a band of music ; 

 soft, sweet babbling chat and chirping evidently 

 affords it pleasure. It is very fastidious, and will 

 not eat off everything, starve rather than swallow a 

 piece of meat off zinc or tinfoil, but its olfactory 

 nerve appears quite the reverse ; its power of scenting 

 anything I should say is nil. 



Timid at first, my saurian pets soon became 

 reconciled to captivity, and quite familiar, would 

 allow me to stroke them ; would lick drops of 

 water off the tips of my fingers, and take food from 

 the same, but it was some months ere they would 

 submit 'quietly to be lifted and handled. However, 

 once their fear was thoroughly subdued, they would 

 voluntarily seek my hand, crawl on to a finger and 

 up my arm on to my shoulder, and it was in the 

 winter that they especially seemed to enjoy being 

 held in the hand, petted and wanned by the fire, and 

 when I returned them to their bed, they would turn, 

 and seek my hand again so coaxingly, and when I 

 tried to shake them off, would cling all the more 

 persistently. 



It was very interesting and most significant to note 

 how, as time went on, Tommy's habits (I speak 

 specially of him, as he lived the longest in captivity 

 — four years and a half) became modified by captivity, 

 and some entirely given up when the necessity for 

 retaining them no longer remained. Having suffi- 

 cient warmth and food supplied to him during the 

 winter, he gradually ceased to seclude himself, except 

 on exceptionally cold days and at night, and not 

 always at these times. He would eat at any hour or 

 the day, taking live insect aliment, or meat, which- 



