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first autumn have reached twice their size at birth; at the end 
of the first year they are two inches long, and when three years 
old they have attained their full size. 
The Lizard emerges from his hybernaculum about the end 
of March; the earliest I have seen was abroad on the 19th of 
February, 1882. Male Lizards emerge about a fortnight before 
the females. It appears that procreation does not take place 
at this time of the year, as with Snakes and the Batrachia, 
but that it occurs later, for I have dug out from their winter 
dormitories female Lizards which were pregnant, and which 
afterwards gave birth to young in their cage. Lizards are 
awake early in the morning during hot weather, and at mid- 
summer I have found them sunning themselves at 6 a.m. 
The food of the Lizard wholly consists of insects, for 
which, while sunning itself, it is always watching, and which, 
with its crocodile-like jaws, it rapidly kills. The grass spiders 
and the flies upon which these subsist, the grass caterpillars, 
and those which fall from the leaves of trees—driven from their 
haunts by insect-eating birds—alike fall a prey to this active 
reptile. It appears that nearly all reptiles drink water, and 
the Lizard especially is fond of it. How is this to be obtained 
by a creature never found in damp situations, and generally 
living on dry banks? On grass or weeds of any kind there 
may always be found, on dry mornings, abundant drops of 
purest water—a supply distilled by Nature from the early mists. 
This is the Lizard’s drink; he sucks up the drops one by one, 
but in confinement he does not hesitate to drink from a vessel 
in his cage. During cold weather he eats little, and takes no 
sustenance in winter; but he does not suffer from hunger, since 
the rapidity of his digestion is proportionate to the heat of 
his body, and he sleeps throughout the days on which, if he 
sought food, none could be obtained. 
Towards the end of September the Lizard prepares for the 
winter, by digging with his claws a burrow under some large 
stone, or among the roots of a tree. Into this he retires, 
and apparently each individual forms his own cell, and does 
not, like a Snake or Viper, seek others of his species for 
