i82 I N A G U A 



would not be dry again I drained several into the canteen al- 

 though I suspected that the milk would quickly go rancid in 

 the hot sun. 



The glades back of the palms swarmed with lizards. Instantly 

 I forgot my feet; these lizards were of a new type. I shot several 

 and examined them carefully. They obviously belonged to the 

 genus Anieiva, 2l group characterized by exceeding nervousness 

 and by the rapidity with which its members are able to run. 

 When alarmed, these lizards fling themselves across the ground 

 with an abandon that has to be seen to be believed; their legs 

 move so quickly as to become invisible blurs; occasionally they 

 stop and dash suddenly off in a new direction, vanishing from 

 sight because the eye, unable to adjust itself so quickly, follows 

 their original course and loses them in so doing. 



I was greatly interested in this genus because I once spent 

 several months working out the life history of a related Haitian 

 species, Ameiva chrysolema, and had discovered that the fe- 

 males of this Hzard congregated when pregnant and deposited 

 their eggs in a communal burrow; each clutch in a separate 

 compartment; a type of reptiUan maternity ward, as it were; a 

 most unorthodox proceeding, for most lizards deposit their eggs 

 singly and apart from one another. The new Ameiva in my 

 hand was colored unlike any other that I had ever seen. On 

 the far side of Babylon another species, Ameiva maynardii, was 

 common wherever there were sandglades as far as the settle- 

 ment. But this new hzard was totally unlike maynardii in that 

 it was uniformly colored a soft olive tan which faded into a 

 light blue on the creature's stomach and undersides. Maynardii, 

 in contrast, is an intensely vivid lizard of jet black marked with 

 two brilliant yellow stripes traversing the length of its body. 

 Its undersides are ultramarine; an altogether gorgeous creature. 

 As nearly as I could discern the anatomy of the two lizards was 

 identical, scale for scale, plate for plate. This later proved to 



