54 REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS 



these pads are absent, the digits being similar to those of 

 many other lizards, being sub-cylindrical, and keeled or 

 denticulated inferiorly. The non-dilated digits are often 

 angularly bent at the articulations, and are provided with 

 strong claws, which may be retractile into a sheath. The 

 eye is large and devoid of lids, being protected by a trans- 

 parent disc, which covers it like a watch-glass. The tongue 

 is fleshy, moderately elongate, and little protrusible. The 

 dentition is pleurodont. 



Some of the genera are arboreal, living in woods, con- 

 cealed during the daytime under dead leaves, or the bark 

 of trees ; others take up their abode in houses, while a 

 few inhabit arid regions, burrowing in the sand. The 

 majority are nocturnal, a few only diurnal. 



Col. Tytler has published some interesting observations 

 on the habits of these creatures. He observes that : 

 " Although several species of Geckos may inhabit the same 

 locality, yet, as a general rule, they keep separate and aloof 

 from each other ; for instance, in a house the dark cellars 

 may be the resort of one species, the roof of another, while 

 the crevices in the walls may be exclusively occupied by a 

 third species. However, at night they issue forth in quest 

 of insects, and may be found mixed up together in the same 

 spot ; but on the slightest disturbance, or when they have 

 done feeding, they return hurriedly to their particular 

 hiding-places." Some three hundred species are known, 

 divided into nearly sixty genera. 



The Moorish Gecko, Tarentola mauretanica, of South- 

 ern Europe and North Africa, and Delalande's Gecko, 

 Tarentola delalandii, of the Canary Islands and West 

 Africa, are the two small forms most commonly kept in 



