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little warm, clinging to the bark of the tree, or crouching (if I may 
use the term) along a small dry branch. I never saw it attempt to 
catch flies, or ants, or any insects; and the only time I ever detected 
it feeding was about this period. One day after heavy rain, the sun 
having broken through the clouds, shining very bright, it was then 
eating the guinea-hen-weed (Petiveria), growing about ten yards 
from the root of the cashaw. I watched it a few moments, unper- 
ceived, and observed it walk very slowly, moving one leg at a time, 
—cropping, and apparently swallowing without any further process, 
a mouthful of leaf; and leaving an indenture on the plant of the size 
of his mouth. Immediately on seeing me, by a succession of rapid 
springs, neither running nor walking, nor was it like the hopping 
of the frog, it regained the tree, and in a second was out of sight. 
The hollow part of the tree is about seven feet from the ground. It 
evidently did not object to the water, as there was a small lodgment 
of water close by where it was feeding, through which it bounded 
without a moment’s hesitation, though it might have regained the 
tree, if it had disliked the water, by going round the small swamp, 
which was only say three or four yards in diameter. I mention this 
circumstance of the water, as we had previously had dreadful dry 
weather, and I often wondered how the animals of this description 
lived for want of it ; and it was never visible during or immediately 
after rain. 
‘« It was, as you are aware, foolishly shot, in my absence, by young 
N , under the false impression that it ate chickens. I have 
spoken of it in the singular number, as we were not aware there were 
two, until Mr. N shot a second one on the same tree about 
two or three hours after he killed the first. This discovery, that 
there were two instead of only one, accounted for what had pre- 
viously often surprised me, namely that sometimes the animal was 
of a brownish-green hue, and when of that colour always appeared 
larger than when it looked blackish. It therefore appears plain that 
they must have been male and female; and, if that is correct, the 
male was by far the largest and handsomest. 
“<The male, as I consider it, was the one I saw dead after it was 
shot. It was about from 22 to 24 inches long, but the tail did not 
appear so long in proportion, as it grew older, as it seemed when 
first discovered. I opened the animal, and found it full of pieces of 
guinea-hen-weed, some digested, some half-digested, and a large 
quantity quite fresh, which is accounted for by its being early in the 
morning, say nine o’clock, when it was shot. I may mention that I 
put the carcass into three or four different sorts of ants’ nests,—the 
common, the stinging black, and the large red ant,—not one of which 
would touch it; and when I forced them into the carcass, and put 
part of their nests in it, they ran away from it as quickly as possible. 
I did this under the hope of getting his skeleton.” 
To this last observation Mr. Hill has appended the following note : 
—*‘ This dislike for the flesh of the lizard may have resulted from 
the odour of the guinea-hen-weed, on which it had recently fed. 
