SAND LIZARD. 31 
only is it very probable that the passages which I have 
quoted from Linneus and Miiller indicate this variety, but 
I cannot help believing that all the accounts we have on 
record of the supposed occurrence of the Green Lizard, Z. 
viridis, in Ireland and in England, are to be referred to in- 
dividuals of the same variety of our present species; which 
were probably of unusually vivid hues, and observed under 
all the advantages of bright sunshine. Such may doubtless 
be the explanation of the “ beautiful green Lacerte” seen 
by Gitbert White, ‘on the sunny sand-banks near Farn- 
ham.” * The Prince of Musignano, in his “* Fauna Italica,” 
figures a variety with the whole of the back of a dull 
brick-red colour. The under side is usually of a whitish or 
greyish colour, varied with light green towards the sides, 
about the collar, and under the tail, and a few black dots 
scattered about those parts. 
In its general form this Lizard is much thicker and less 
gracile than the more common species. The head is rather 
more obtuse, the body more rounded, and the limbs 
stronger and shorter. The relative proportions of the tail 
and the body vary exceedingly in different individuals. As 
a general rule, it may be stated that the length of the head 
and body together is to that of the tail as three to four 
nearly ; but in one specimen in my collection the propor- 
tions are nearly equal, and in that which is figured above, 
page 30, the tail is even considerably shorter than the head 
and body; but, as has been observed before, this may have 
occurred from the mutilation and reproduction of that part. 
The legs are so short, that when the posterior ones are 
* J find, by referring to my lamented friend Mr. Bennett’s edition of the 
“Natural History of Selborne,” that I have appended the following note to 
page 114:—“ These were probably unusually large and bright individuals of 
the L. stirpiwm, now ascertained to be indigenous to this country.” 
