170 REPTILES OF THE WORLD 



open mouth, suddenly threw the body sidewise and with 

 a wonderfully quick blow of the tail struck the man 

 on the arm, inflicting as severe a welt as if dealt with a 

 whip. 



During their stay out of doors these monitors re- 

 mained savage and wild. At the approach of autumn 

 they were brought in-doors, where, within a couple of 

 weeks, they were as docile as before. 



Gould's Monitor, V. gouldii, is found in Australia 

 and New Guinea. It grows to five feet in length and 

 looks somewhat like the Kabara-goya, being blackish, 

 with yellow dots and rosettes on the back. 



Family Teiidce: This is a New World family. The 

 members vary from powerful, carnivorous, terrestrial 

 species to degraded burrowing forms with rudimentary 

 legs. Their scaly covering is just as variable as their 

 size and habits. One character is fairly steady. This 

 is the development of the tongue, which is a long, forked, 

 flexible organ used continuously in examining the 

 ground as the lizard progresses, or to inspect the food. 

 Owing to the peculiar dentition, this family might be 

 said to stand midway as regards the two well-defined 

 phases of tooth structure among lizards. The teeth grow 

 almost upon the edge of the jaw, but they are solid. 

 Thus the dentition is neither strictly acrodont nor 

 pleurodont. Some genera, such as Tupinambis and 

 Draccena, have molar-like crushing teeth in the rear. 



The Teiidce is analogous to the Old World Lacer- 

 tidce. Among several genera of each family there is 

 a striking similarity, this appealing not only to form, 

 but to the general scalation of the body, the plate-like 

 scales on the tail arranged in rings and the large, reg- 

 ular shields on the head. The members of the Teiidce 

 are abundant from the southern portions of the United 



