THE PINE LIZARD AND ITS ALLIES 



365 



ians are also found in China, Africa, southern Asia, and 

 South America. They frequent the edge of rivers, ponds, 

 and lakes, lying in wait for their prey with only the tip of 

 the snout exposed, or concealed in the vegetation at the 

 edge of the water. They feed at night, and during the day 

 bask in the sun on sand banks or on logs. 



Fig. 190. Reconstruction drawing of the fossil reptile Ceratosaurus. 



(Greatly reduced) 



Reptiles of Past Ages. During the Age of Amphibians a 

 great part of the interior of North America was one vast 

 swamp, in which stretches of black water alternated with 

 drier areas covered with the characteristic vegetation of the 

 period, the whole bathed in the heat of a tropical climate. 

 Under conditions similar to these the reptiles first came into 

 existence in the latter part of the Carboniferous Age. They 

 developed in numbers, size, and form, and became in the 

 succeeding period so characteristic a part of the world's 

 fauna that the age is named, from them, the Age of Reptiles. 

 This forms the third great division of geological time, called 

 Mesozoic Time, or the Era of the Medieval Forms of Life. 



