SAND LIZARD. 27 



dimensions can scarcely admit of a reasonable doubt on 

 the subject. The locality mentioned by him as its most 

 usual resort, — namely, on heaths, — is also, as far as it goes, 

 a confirmatory fact. 



It is to Mr. Jenyns, however, that we owe the only 

 clear and satisfactory published description of this species 

 as a native of Britain ; and his account of its characters is 

 as admirable for its correctness and perspicuity as any of 

 the other descriptions of that accomplished author. 



It is from the immediate vicinity of my own native place 

 that the specimens which have hitherto formed the sub- 

 jects of more recent observation have been obtained. I 

 have been familiar with it from my childhood ; and its 

 frequency in various parts of the sandy heaths around 

 Poole and its neighbourhood gave me, when young, nume- 

 rous opportunities of observing the remarkable difference of 

 size between this and the other native species; — from 

 which circumstance I had, even then, often suspected that 

 they were distinct. Subsequently, when the prosecution 

 of the study of Erpetology might perhaps have enabled me 

 to distinguish them, the opportunity of observing them had 

 ceased, until Mr. Jenyns, having, through Mr. Yarrell, ob- 

 tained specimens from Poole, seized, with his usual acumen, 

 upon the point of distinction, and speedily discovered the 

 identity of this species with the L. sthyium of Daudin, of 

 Milne Edwards, and of Duges. 



I shall be readily pardoned this long and somewhat dry 

 investigation of the synonymy of this species by every 

 systematic Zoologist who appreciates the importance of 

 precision on this subject ; and I now proceed to give a 

 short history of its habits, as far as I have had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing them. 



This beautiful species is found in the neighbourhood of 



