100 Captain Burney's Account of' the Lizard of Siam. 



Art. XV. — Account of the Lizard of Siam, with Observa- 

 tions. By Captain Burney, Envoy to Siam in 1826. Com- 

 municated by George Swinton, Esq. F.R.S. and F.A.S. 

 Edinburgh. 



As two specimens of this remarkable animal has been recently 

 sent to the Museum of the Royal Society of Edinburgh by 

 George Swinton, Esq. and are now in that collection, it will 

 be interesting to the naturalist to be put in possession even 

 of the little information which has been obtained respecting 

 it. 



When Captain Burney was at the Court of Siam in 1826, 

 he collected the information which could be procured relative 

 to this lizard ; and as Mr Finlayson, who acted as naturalist 

 to the still more recent mission of Mr Crawford, neither seems 

 to have seen nor heard of the animal, the observations of Cap- 

 tain Burney become of still more value. 



M. La Loubere, in his Historical Relation of Siam, (p. 16, 

 Lond. 1693,) gives the following account of the lizard : — 



" But their history of animals must not easily be credited. 

 They understand not bodies better than souls ; and in all mat- 

 ters their inclination is to imagine wonders, and persuade them- 

 selves so much the more easily to believe them as they are 

 incredible. What they report of a sort of lizard named Toe- 

 quay proceeds from an ignorance and credulity very singular. 

 They imagine that this animal, feeling his liver grow too big, 

 makes the cry which has imposed on him the name of Toe- 

 quay, to call another insect to its succour, and that this other 

 insect, entering into his body at his mouth, eats the overplus of 

 the liver, and after this repast retires out of the Toe-quay's 

 body by the same way that he entered therein." 



Remark by Captain Burney. — The name Tut-ke is said at 

 Bangkok to be taken from tap-ke, " liver old," with which cry 

 the animal gives notice to a description of snake, on the ap- 

 proach of which the animal vomits its liver, and the snake bites 

 off a bit and relieves the Tut-ke. 



The following account of the Toque is given by Turpin in 

 his History of Siam. — " The toque is also a large lizard, six 



