THE SKINK TRIBE 



2529 



movements, creeping about with the abdomen pressed to the ground. Its chief 

 food consists of worms and insects, although fruit and vegetables are occasionally 

 eaten; and that it can endure long fasts is proved by an example which only ate two 

 or three flies during the voyage from Australia to England. 



Very different in appearance to the last is the lizard (Ablepharus 



Snake-Eye hannonicus\ represented in the accompanying illustration, which be- 

 Lizards . . , ' ,. A ., L , 



longs to a genus containing a number of small species distributed over 



Australia, Southwestern Asia, -Southeastern Europe, and tropical and South Amer- 

 ica, one of which (A. boutoni} ranges irregularly over the hotter parts of both the 

 Eastern and Western Hemispheres. These lizards differ from all their kin in hav- 

 ing no movable eyelids, their place being taken by a transparent disc of skin 

 stretched over the eye after the manner of snakes. In this genus the ear may be 

 either open or concealed by scales; and while some of the species have well-developed 



EUROPEAN SNAKE-EYED UZARD. 

 (Natural size.) 



limbs, in others they are more or less aborted, the number of toes being also highly 

 variable. The figured species, which ranges in Europe from Hungary to Greece, 

 and is also spread over Asia Minor, Syria, and Northern Arabia, measures only 

 four inches in length, of which fully half is occupied by the tail. Its general color 

 above is bronzy olive, becoming darker on the sides, and with a blackish light- 

 edged streak passing through the eye along each side of the body; the under 

 parts are greenish. The European species is found alike on slopes covered with 

 short grass or in sandy spots, and does not appear to be a burrower. Feeding on 

 small insects and worms, it does not generally venture forth from its lurking places 

 till four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and retires before night. In common with 

 the other members of its genus, it differs from the majority of its family in laying 

 eggs. 



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