REPTILIA — LIZARD. 697 



" The alligator, when after prey in the water, or at its edge^ swims so 

 slowly towards it, as not to ruffle the water. It approaches the object side- 

 ways, body and head all concealed, till sure of his stroke; then, with a tre- 

 mendous blow, as quick as thought, the object is secured, as I described 

 before." 



THE LIZARD. 1 



The color of these animals is very various, as tbey are found of a hun- 

 dred different hues ; green, blue, red, chesnut, yellow, spotted, streaked, and 

 marbled. Were color alone capable of constituting beauty, the lizard would 

 often please ; but there is something so repulsive in the animal's figure, 

 that the brilliancy of its scales, or the variety of its spots, only tend to give 

 an air of more exquisite venom, of greater malignity. The figure of these 

 animals is not less various ; sometimes swollen in the belly, sometimes 

 pursed up at the throat; sometimes with a rough set of spines on the back, 

 like the teeth of a saw; sometimes with teeth, at others with none ; some- 

 times venomous, at others harmless, and even philanthropic; sometimes 

 smooth and even ; sometimes with a long, slender tail ; and often with a 

 shorter blunt one. 



But their greatest distinction arises from their manner of bringing forth 

 their young ; some of them are viviparous; some are oviparous; and some 

 bring forth small spawn, like fishes. 



THE GREEN LIZARD^ 



Is seen in its greatest brilliancy about the beginning of spring ; when, aftei 

 having thrown off its old covering, it exposes its new skin, with all its bright 

 enamelled scales, to the genial warmth of the sun's rays, which, playing on 

 the scales, gild them with undulating reflections. The upper parts of the 



1 The genus Laccrta has the palate armed with two rows of teeth ; a collar on the under 

 side of the neck, formed by a transverse row of large scales, separated from those of the 

 belly by very small ones ; bone of the cranium projected on the temples and orbits. 



2 Lacerta viridis, Daud. 



S8 6P 



