76 THE VIVARIUM. 
and watched the animal spoken of. He was looking rather sleepy, 
and his attitude was far from elegant. Presently, however, his 
eye brightened, and his long forked tongue commenced to vibrate 
from his snake-like head, and he quickly became quite alert. He 
heard something that I could not hear. But as in a second or two 
a rumbling sound reached my ears, the door at the back of the 
den suddenly opened and the keeper’s head and shoulders appeared 
in view. The noise, I afterwards discovered, was caused by the 
moving of the wheeled steps along the corridor behind. The 
keeper, by means of an iron rod, drove or coaxed the strange 
beast to the front part of the Vivarium near the glass, and by the 
help of a cloth dropped a large egg close to him. The animal 
eagerly and deftly seized the egg, and by a clever toss of his head 
arranged it lengthwise in his mouth, cracking it slightly as he did 
so, and swallowed it with evident relish. The feat, however, was 
not done to the keeper’s satisfaction, so another egg was produced 
which was not even cracked as it slipped down the throat of the 
big Reptile. The animal who possessed this rather uncommon 
accomplishment was a large Lizard belonging to the family 
Varanide. This clever performer was, if I remember rightly, the 
Two-banded Monitor (Varanus salvator), which had been in the 
gardens for several years. From time to time I have seen him take 
many eggs, but the only one I ever saw him crack was the first. 
The family of the Varanide, or of the Montoride as it is also 
called, numbers amongst its members the largest of all the true 
Lizards, some of them reaching a length of seven feet, and 
perhaps, occasionally, even more. The Varanide difter from the 
rest of their relatives of the order Lacertilia, with the exception 
of the Heloderms, in the formation of their nasal apertures. The 
Monitors have a long and rather snake-like head covered with 
very small inimbricate polygonal shields, a long tongue which is 
deeply forked and sheathed posteriorly, and a long and powerful 
tail, rounded or compressed according to the manner of life of its 
owner. The under part of their body is covered with small 
oblong scales arranged ‘‘in crossbands,’”’ while those on “the 
back and tail are rhombic.” For their size, they are fiercer, 
stronger, and braver than any other of the Lizards. Their teeth 
are acute, compressed, triangular or conical—there are none on 
