288 EEPTILES OF BERMUDA. 



and movements so rapid that the flash and rustle of disappearance are 

 most often all that tell of its presence, and which, when caught napping 

 by the sharp-sighted hunter, in favorite haunts in the wood among the 

 rocks or about the buildings, frequently secures freedom by leaving its 

 tail as a trophy in the hand of the enemy while retiring, but little the 

 worse for the loss, to grow another. Its most common name is " Skink." 

 This name is shared with many other species of the large family to which 

 it belongs, a family which has representatives in nearly all the tropical 

 and subtropical parts of the earth. In some of the West Indies allied 

 species are called " Slippery Backs," in others " Mabouia," and in the 

 United States "Blue tails" and "Scorpions." 



Captain John Smith mentions the occurrence of lizards on the Ber- 

 mudas previous to 1623, but in the same breath says they no longer 

 existed at that date. " Lizards there were many and very large, but now 

 none, and it is said they were destroyed by the Cat." There is a possi- 

 bility that formerly some large species existed here, as at present upon 

 Navassa (Metapoceros), or upon the Galapagos {Conoloplms and Amhly- 

 rhynchus). Yet it is hardly probable that any lizards were entirely ex- 

 terminated; it is more likely that the existing species, being without 

 enemies and undisturbed, reached a greater size than is possible on the 

 islands densely populated as they now are. One can have little idea of 

 what the Captain had in mind when he used the word "large." If there 

 had been very large lizards other writers would not have passed them 

 without notice. Eev. Lewis Hughes, 1614, says nothing about them. 

 Among his statements concerning the animals, after enumerating the 

 birds, he says that " Here is no kind of beasts but hogges and cattes and 

 they but in one or two jjlaces which are thought to come at first by 



Bmooth, with two pores, hinder margin rounded, in thirty-six longitudinal rows, those 

 of the flank irregularly ascending backward. Scales of middle of back and belly 

 larger, those under the middle of the tail broadest. A small plate on each side of the 

 pair of large ones in front of the vent. 



Colors of young light brown on back, dark on flanks, lighter and bluish beneath. 

 A dark-bordered white line along each edge of the back from the anterior supraciliary 

 to the tail. A similar more or less broken line from below the eye across the ear to 

 the hip. Between the white bands the flanks are dark brown. The dark color shades 

 into the bluish at the sides of the abdomen. A narrow white band extends along the 

 inner edges of the supraciliaries forward around the outer edges of prefrontals. Chin 

 and throat yellowish red, cheeks more brown, and top of head reddish brown. Limbs 

 and sides of belly and tail mottled with light. With age the white becomes more ob- 

 solete, the ground color a more uniform darker brown, and the yellowish red predomi- 

 nates on cheeks and crown. Specimens described furnished by Professor Goodo, for 

 whom they were collected by J. Mathew Jones, esq. 



Very common on the Bermudas, frequenting the old walla and etone heaps in the 

 cedar groves (Jones). 



