2530 



SCALED REPTILES 



True Skinks 



While both the genera mentioned belong to a group character- 

 ized by the palatine bones meeting in the middle of the palate, the 

 true skinks indicate a second and smaller group in which those bones are separated 

 from one another. Skinks are neatly made, somewhat short-tailed lizards, with 

 short limbs provided with five toes serrated on their sides. The tail is conical, the 

 head and snout wedged shaped, the ear more or less concealed; while the nostrils 

 are pierced between an upper and a lower nasal shield. Of the nine species of the 

 genus, which range from North Africa through Arabia and Persia to Sind, the most 

 familiar is the common skink (Srincus offirinalis) of the Sahara and Red Sea lit- 

 toral. This species, which attains a length of eight and one-fourth inches, has 

 smooth, shining, rounded scales of great breadth, and is of a yellowish or brownish 



COMMON SKINK. 



(Two-thirds natural size.) 



color above, with each scale marked by small brown and whitish spots and streaks, 

 and the sides of the body often ornamented with dark transverse bands; the under 

 parts being uniformly whitish. Not uncommon in Egypt, and abundant in the 

 Algerian and Tunisian Sahara, the common skink derives its specific name from 

 having been extensively employed in medicine as an infallible remedy for almost 

 every disease under the sun; its reputation as a healing agent still surviving among 

 the Arabs, by whom the flesh of the creature is used both as a drug and as an 

 article of food. The exclusive haunts of the skink are sandy districts, where 

 it generally moves in a slow and deliberate manner, and when frightened buries 

 itself in the soil instead of attempting to seek safety in flight. Indeed, the 

 celerity with which the reptile sinks into the sand is described as being little 

 short of marvelous, suggesting the idea of its escaping into some hole already 



