LIZARDS. 81 
in confinement of venomous Snakes, I will venture to write a few 
words about so strange a beast as the one poisonous Lizard. This 
Reptile is known as the Heloderm (Heloderma horridum) and is 
a native of Central America, Southern Arizona seeming to be the 
centre of its distribution. It is also called the ‘‘ Escorpion”’ and 
the ‘‘ Gila Monster.”’ 
When Sir John Lubbock presented one of these Lizards to the 
Zoological Gardens, London, in 1882, not a little excitement was 
caused among those who were interested in Reptiles. The 
animal is altogether so different from most other Lizards in its 
movements and manner of life, and so different from all others in 
the possession of poison-glands and grooved teeth, that it should 
have attracted the curious in these things is no matter of sur- 
prise. It had, however, been known to science for a very long 
time, but this was the first, or one of the first, living specimens 
brought to England. 
It is indeed a strange and remarkable animal. Its very ap- 
pearance is enough to inspire people with an unwillingness to 
touch it; for it looks dangerous, and is well described as 
‘*hideous.”” Though I do not think that its bite has ever proved 
fatal to a healthy human being, it is sufficiently poisonous to , 
cause small mammals to die in a minute or two after being bitten. 
The Heloderm is brown in colour spotted with yellow, and has a 
heavy, round, useless looking tail, four legs, five apparently weak 
toes on each foot, armed with curved claws, and a body covered 
with tubercles; hence its generic name, meaning warty skin. 
The monster is heavily and clumsily built, and very inactive, 
and its power of dealing a dangerous or deadly wound seems to 
be given it rather as a means of defence than as a means of 
killing its prey. It is generally a little less than _2ft. im length, 
though I have seen it described as being 3ft. In captivity it lives 
for a long time, and feeds upon raw eggs, dead mice, young rats, 
and uncooked meat. It laps water in a very dog-like fashion. 
The Heloderm is tenacious of life, its muscles moving for a 
long time after it has been beheaded, and it is by no means easily 
killed by chloroform. 
The members of the interesting Teiidee family are natives 
of the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the New World. They 
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