A HOUSE LIZARD 



if the lizard be forcibly abducted from the ant-hill the 

 ants will leave in chagrin and found another colony. 

 In the south of Europe lives Blanus, an ally of Amphis- 

 bczna which prefers manure heaps, where it finds and 

 eats earthworms, to ant-hills. 



That so many different families of lizards should show 

 an equal capacity for more or less completely losing 

 their limbs makes the transition between a snake and 

 a lizard easy to imagine ; and also shows us that 

 the snake may be a quite composite group perhaps 

 derived from different groups of lizards. 



THE TOKAY GECKO 



This, the great house gecko of the East, is commonly 

 on view at the Zoo, where it may be recognized and 

 distinguished from other geckos by its large size, measur- 

 ing as it does a foot or more in length, and by its marked 

 and not unpleasant coloration ; this coloration con- 

 sists of red spots and marks upon a greyish green 

 ground. Geckos as a rule are not big lizards, indeed 

 their capacity for running up vertical walls, and even 

 crossing ceilings suspended head downwards, would 

 seem to forbid a great bulk ; even as it is their attitude 

 seems to show a striking variance from the laws of 

 gravitation. They stick, however, by a peculiar 

 mechanism quite analogous to that by which a piece of 

 glass may be made to adhere to another piece of glass 

 by simple pressure. The toes of the gecko are covered 

 with fine folds lying in parallel rows ; these when firmly 

 pressed down upon a smooth surface drive out the under- 

 lying air, and as a consequence atmospheric pressure 

 assists the foothold of the lizard. This mechanism, 

 so essential to the house-loving ways of the gecko, 

 is not, however, peculiar to these lizards ; other lizards, 

 such as species of the genus Anolis, allied to the Iguana, 

 whose peculiarities have been treated of on another page, 



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