LIZARDS. 121 



far as the muzzle. The brilliant goitre is thus alternately extended 

 and relaxed several times. After being thus * signalised ' for a few 

 seconds, one darts towards the other, who usually runs away, appa- 

 rently as if wishing to be caught." Elsewhere Mr. Gosse describes 

 the noosing of an example of a fine Lizard of this Anolis group, the 

 Dactyla Edwardsii, which is also a native of Jamaica, " about a foot 

 long, and of a lively green colour. He was very savage, biting at every- 

 thing near : presently his colour began to change from green to 

 blackish, till it was of a uniform bluish black, with darker bands on 

 the body, and a brownish black on the tail ; the only trace of green 

 was just around the eyes." He was placed in a cage, and "at night," 

 continues Mr. Gosse, " I observed him vividly green, as at first a 

 token, as I presumed, that he had in some measure recovered his 

 equanimity. The next day he continued very fierce. I hung the 

 cage out in the sun ; two or three times in the course of the day I 

 observed him green, but for the most part he was black. The changes 

 were rather quickly accomplished. The food of this Lizard appears 

 to include both vegetable and animal substances. I was never able 

 to induce one to eat in captivity ; but the dissection of several has 

 given me this result. Thus in one I have found seeds and farinaceous 

 substances ; in another fragments of a brilliant beetle of the Weevil 

 group. I once observed one deliberately eat the ripe glass-berries, 

 munching half of one at a mouthful." * 



Thus far we have treated of chiefly arboreal Iguanidce; and 

 although a marine Lizard, Trachycephalus cristatus cannot well be so 

 designated, it nevertheless belongs to the same particular series. We 

 have next a long series of mainly terrene genera of the same great 

 American family, in which the body is subtrigonal or depressed. As 

 many as twenty-two genera, with sixty-one species of the terrene 

 Iguanidce, were catalogued by Dr. Gray in 1845, and a good many 

 have since been added. There is a corresponding series in the kin- 

 dred Old World family of Agamidce, and in neither instance are the 

 majority of them ground-frequenting Lizards to any great extent. 

 Thus, of Dr. Gray's first genus Tropidolepis (so named from its large 

 keeled scales), and of which as many as nine species are given from 

 Mexico, a tenth (T. undulatus, of the United States) is described by 

 Professor Holbrook as inhabiting chiefly the pine forests, where it is 

 found under the bark of decaying trees ; selecting old fences for its 

 bask ing-place. " It is exceedingly rapid in its motions, climbing with 

 great facility to the tops of trees, and is hence not taken alive without 



* " A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica," by P. H. Gosse. 



