REPTILES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. Ill 



1895, and put in small cages, where there were supplied 

 with flies and water, of which these lizards are very fond. 

 Young appeared in one box August 29 and in the other 

 September 24, 1895. Those of the first brood varied in 

 length from seventy-one to seventy-six millimeters, and 

 those of the second, from fifty-eight to sixty-two. The 

 old lizards showed no affection or solicitude for their 

 young, but the young liked to be near their parents. 

 Six out of fifteen inherited an irregularity of the dorsal 

 scale-series, shown- by their female parent.* 



During the first few days these young lizards ate 

 nothing, but then they began to snap at the smaller 

 flies. When stalking flies, they crouched close to the 

 ground and crept slowly forward, their heads swaying 

 from side to side and their tails quivering or thrashing 

 with excitement. Then, if the snap was successful, the 

 prey was held firmly in the jaws while the lizard, with 

 body and tail straightened, rolled rapidly over and over, 

 grinding the fly in the sand. Frequently when one 

 had caught a fly the others would rush up and feel of it 

 inquisitively with their tongues, sometimes even trying 

 to appropriate it to themselves. Sometimes, too, one's 

 chase was interrupted by another lizard seizing the 

 quivering tip of the hunter's tail. The young lizards 

 were very fond of lying in the water, and several delib- 

 erately held their heads under its surface until they 

 were drowned. The last of the family died, May 5, 



1896, during a vain endeavor to shed its skin. 



The lizards which I kept in confinement were more 

 or less active throughout the winter, but Mr. James M. 

 Hyde broke up two decaying logs, near Pescadero, De- 

 cember 22, 1893, and found five lizards of this species 



* I have found a similar irregularity in only two of forty-nine other specimens. One of 

 these was from the same locality as this female. 



