THE WALL LIZARD, LAGERTA MURALIS 79 



quently other lizards, and even younger members of 

 their own kind. Many of them love sugar, which 

 they lick, and all require water. They are all terres- 

 trial, preferring, according to their kind, such localities 

 as yield them their particular food. Sunshine and 

 warmth make a marvellous change in the same in- 

 dividual, which on dull, rainy, or cold days lies in its 

 hole, or shows only sluggish movements. Their sense 

 of locality is great, or rather each individual inhabits 

 one place of which it knows every nook and corner, 

 cranny, tree, and bush. It has its favourite hole to 

 sleep in, a stone, the branch of a tree, or a wall to 

 bask upon, and when disturbed or chased it makes 

 with unerring swiftness for a safe spot to retire into. 

 The same lizard, when once driven away from its 

 own locality, seems to lose all its presence of mind, 

 flounders about, and is comparatively easily caught. 

 Most lizards are extremely curious, although shy, and 

 this state of their mind can be made use of by those 

 who want to catch them without injury, and, above 

 all, without getting the animal minus the brittle tail. 

 This safe way of catching lizards consists in taking a 

 thin rod with a running noose of thread at the end, in 

 drawing the latter over the lizard's head, and then 

 raising it. The little creature does not mind the rod 

 in the least ; on the contrary, it watches it carefully, 

 and often makes for the thread. The boys in Southern 

 Italy have improved upon and simplified this mode of 

 catching lizards by bending the end of a wisp of grass 



