XXVI 



LIZARDS, CROCODILES, AND TORTOISES. 



" Alone by one old populous green wall 

 Tenanted by the ever-busy flies, 

 Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders." 



Paracelsus. 



" How cheerfully he seems to grin, 

 How neatly spreads his claws, 

 And welcomes little fishes in 

 With gently smiling jaws." 



Alice in Wonderland. 



"In that land is full much waste, for it is full of serpents, of 

 dragons and of cocodrills that no man dare dwell there." 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. 



ANY account of the ordinary inhabitants of the 

 gardens of Calcutta would be very incomplete 

 without some notice of the commoner reptiles, 

 batrachians, and fishes to be met with in them ; for 

 small lizards and snakes are present in all of 

 them, and in the larger, and particularly in the 

 larger suburban enclosures, containing abundant 

 cover and numerous ponds, great Varani and even 

 crocodiles, tortoises, innumerable frogs and toads, 



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