THE PINE-TREE LIZARD. 167 



The most superficial examination of the external ear of the 

 pine-tree lizard will at once lead one to infer that the animal's 

 hearing is acute ; and this is true. When watching the lizards 

 on the trestle over Babcock's Creek, at May's Landing, I was 

 forcibly struck with this fact. Such of them as were basking on 

 the timbers of the bridge were not disturbed when I approached 

 them with moderate care, stepping only on the cross-ties, or be- 

 tween them ; but if I struck the rails with my cane they instantly 

 took notice of it and assumed a listening attitude. I subsequently 

 experimented upon this point, and found that when my companion 

 struck the rails a smart blow, even at a distance of fifty yards, 

 the lizards were aware of the peculiar sound, and acted accord- 

 ingly, even darting out of sight with that swiftness that charac- 

 terizes their first few steps. I have recently learned from Rev. 

 John E. Peters, Sc. D., of May's Landing, that his observations 

 lead him to conclude that the sense of hearing is not very acute, 

 and that they depend principally upon that of sight for safety and 

 the finding of their food; but his experiments were not so ex- 

 tended as my own, and limited too largely to specimens in con- 

 finement. 



It is a most interesting fact, although so very wild when 

 first met with, that, once captured, they instantly become tame. 

 Indeed, I have had them lie quietly upon -my hand, while 

 walking in the woods, and make no effort to escape. There 

 is a bare possibility that the efforts on their part to escape, 

 and fear, when finally captured, may produce a hypnotic con- 

 dition, or something like it, but this would pass by and leave 

 them wild. This, I think, never occurs. Once in my hand, I 

 have never known a pine-tree lizard to be otherwise than per- 

 fectly tame. But, in a large series in confinement, I found that 

 the sense of hearing was constantly brought into play, as shown 

 by their ludicrous actions when flies, shut in a thin paper box, 

 were placed near them. They not only heard but recognized the 

 noise — a very important matter, bearing as it does upon their in- 

 telligence. Indeed, in the woods about May's Landing I found 

 that the lizards were perfectly familiar with many sudden sounds 

 and paid no attention whatever to them. Some of these were the 

 sonorous croak of the bull-frog, the quick scream of the blue-jay, 

 the rattle of the golden-winged woodpecker, and the coarse cry of 

 the great-crested fly-catcher. These were all unheeded, while my 

 own coughing, the whistling of a single note, or the loud utterance 

 of a word, caused them either to assume a make-ready attitude or 

 to dart away. On the other hand, have these lizards any voice ? 

 Their actions inter se are strongly suggestive of the affirmative, 

 but, so far as I am able to determine, their utterances are confined 

 to hissing, and this I only heard when I provoked the creatures 



