THE MONITORS 



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brown, banded and spotted with yellow, and the under parts yellowish. It 

 generally frequents cliffs, or low rocky hills, in the interstices of which it delights 

 to hide, coming out to bask on the flat surfaces. Gray's monitor ( V. grayi} is an 

 example of a second subgroup in which the abdominal scales are keeled. In the 

 third great group, of which we take as our first example the water monitor ( V. 

 salvator], represented in the colored plate, round or oval nostrils are accompanied 



CAPE MONITOR. 



(One-sixth natural size.) 



by a compressed tail. In the species in question there is a series of transversely 

 elongated scales above the eyes, the oval nostrils are situated as far from the eyes as 

 from the tip of the snout, there are more than eighty transverse rows of scales be- 

 tween the fold on the throat and the groin, and the scales on the nape are not 

 larger than those of the back. This fine species, which ranges from India through 

 the Malayan region and China to Australia, attains a length of nearly seven feet, 



