COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



contempt when it was to be had, and running eagerly 

 to take it out of one's fingers. When pictures, 

 which have hung on the wall for some time, are 

 displaced, it is not at all uncommon to find that a 

 gecko has selected some nook about a frame as the 

 site in which to lay its little delicate oval eggs, which 

 look as though they ought to have been in the nest 

 of a humming-bird. 



" Blood-suckers" are very unlike wall-geckos both 

 in appearance and habits. They are long slender 

 creatures, are very timid, and hardly ever stray into 

 houses, where indeed they must find themselves very 

 ill at ease, owing to the structure of their feet. Their 

 long, slender toes and clasping claws are adapted to 

 a purely arboreal existence, and it is among boughs 

 and twigs and on the rough surfaces of the bark of 

 stems that they find a congenial home. When one 

 of them screws up courage to come to the ground in 

 order to reach a new perch lying at too great a 

 distance to be got at by leaping, it is always with 

 evident trepidation, and the journey along the level 

 is invariably performed in a headlong rush. When 

 at their ease among the branches they move about 

 quietly and lightly from place to place, or rest 

 motionless on exposed twigs, basking and drowsy in 

 the blaze of the sunshine ; but, on the faintest alarm, 

 they are ofF at once, running and leaping from point 

 to point with wonderful speed and agility. As a rule, 

 they are very vigilant and hard to take unaware, unless 



