SAND LIZARD. ^9 



Dr. Bell Salter : it is of a rich brown colour above, with a 

 rather lighter fascia on each side near the mesial line, and a 

 number of black ocellated spots, arranged almost continuously 

 in somewhat irregular oblique fascise, each of these spots 

 having a white pupil. There are in this, as in the one de- 

 scribed by !Mr. Sheppard, about four black spots on the 

 head. This specimen has a remarkably short tail, and some 

 other structural peculiarities, which led me at first to suppose 

 that it belonged to a different species ; but I am now satisfied 

 that it is merely a variety of the present one. The compa- 

 rative shortness of the tail probably arises from its having 

 been mutilated and restored. 



Another variety is that to which I have before alluded, in 

 which the upper parts are more or less of a green hue. In 

 some this colour is brighter and lighter than in others ; but 

 the usual colour is a rather dull brownish green. Not only 

 is it very probable that the passages which I have quoted 

 from Linneus and Miiller indicate this variety, but I cannot 

 help believing that all the accounts we have on record of the 

 supposed occurrence of the Green Lizard, L. viridis^ in Ire- 

 land and in England, are to be referred to individuals of the 

 same variety of our present species, which were probably of 

 unusually vivid hues, and observed under all the advan- 

 tages of bright sunshine. Such may doubtless be the ex- 

 planation of the " beautiful green LacertcB ''"' seen by Gilbert 

 White, " or the sunny sand-banks near Farnham."* The 

 Prince of Musignano, in his " Fauna Italica," figures a variety 

 with the whole of the back of a dull brick-red colour. The 

 under side is usually of a whitish or greyish colour, varied 

 with light green towards the sides, about the collar, and 



* I find, by referring to my lamented friend Mr. Bennett's edition of the 

 ** Natural History of Selborne," that I have appended the following note to 

 page 114: — "These were probably unusually large and bright individuals of 

 the L. sth-piunif now ascertained to be indigenous to this country." 



