14 Mr* Broderip on the importance of Facts 



state. These actions are assisted by other muscles of secondary- 

 importance, and less readily demonstrated and described ; and 

 there are muscular fibres passing from one of the lateral processes 

 to the other through nearly the whole length, which keep them in 

 their proper relative position, and assist in both the actions which 

 I have just described. 



I have made the most careful dissections of eight or ten differ- 

 ent individuals of various species, but have never been able to 

 discover the slightest ground for supposing that these animals can 

 possibly possess the power of inflating the pouch ; nor is there in 

 any pait of it the smallest opening through which air could pass. 



As ray opportunities of observing these lizards have been con- 

 fined to dead specimens, I am restricted to mere anatomical de- 

 tails : I would however mention that the skin of this part of the 

 throat is always more brightly coloured than that of the rest of the 

 body, and that it is said to be more susceptible of those chamele- 

 on-like changes, which many species of this group are capable of 

 assuming, and which are always more vivid during any kind of 

 excitement. 



Plate II. fig. 1. Under view of the os hyoides in Anolis lineatiis. 

 2. Side view with the cartilaginous process strait. 

 S. The same curved. 



Art. IV. On the utility/ of preserving facts relative to the 

 habits of Animals^ with additions to two Memoirs in 

 " Whitens Natural History of Selborne,'^ By W. J. 

 Broderip, Esq, F,L.S, Sfc. 



There are few facts, however isolated, however trivial they 

 may respectively appear to-be, more conducive to the illustration 

 of the history of animals, than those which relate to their habits ; 

 and yet there is scarcely any information which is treated in a 

 more careless style. Whether our amour propre tempts us to feel 

 that it is beneath us to be the biographers of '' rats and mice and 

 Buch small deer ; " or whether the anecdotes which we pick up at 



