AN AMERICAN LIZARD 



same idea has fixed itself to quite another kind of lizard, 

 inhabiting South America. This lizard, formerly placed 

 in the near neighbourhood of the monitor, is known as 

 the Teguexin, and is referred to on another page. Both 

 ilzards have got the reputation, apparently entirely unde- 

 served, of being a friend to the human race, by giving 

 notice of a prowling alligator. It would be interesting 

 to know whether the idea was conveyed to the natives 

 of South America by white men acquainted with the 

 Old World monitor and its reputation, or whether it is 

 part of an original stock of legends carried from the east 

 to the west or vice versa by migrating tribes, who colon- 

 ized the one half of the world from the other. 



THE IGUANA LIZARD 



The whole family of lizards to which Iguana belongs 

 are, with a very few exceptions, American in range, and 

 they are for the far greater part denizens of the central 

 and southern parts of that continent, and of the adjacent 

 West Indies, which, zoologically considered, are part of 

 America. The family is a very large one ; but the genus 

 Iguana itself, which has given the name to the family, is 

 a very small one, and, indeed, consists of at most three 

 different species. The one most familiar to those visit- 

 ing the Zoo is undoubtedly Iguana tuberculata, which is 

 green in colour, diversified with brown in part, and has 

 an extremely long and, at the end, thin tail. Along the 

 head are a series of tooth-like crests, and under the chin 

 hangs a dewlap like that of an Indian zebu. The iguana 

 lives in trees ; and this habit of living at some altitude 

 seems to beget thoughtfulness, which takes the form in 

 our specimens at the Zoo of extreme immobility. For 

 hours perhaps if we were there to see we should find it 

 to be days the iguana sits and does nothing. It is a 

 lizard that has, for a lizard, the uncommon habit of being 

 vegetarian. There are others which share this mode 



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