LIZARDS. 83 



cut the skin to the extent of drawing blood if the animal was held in the hands 

 while struggling to escape. 



The Australian Lizard that next in order to Chlamydosaurus claims attention 

 on account of its bizarre aspect is the so-called Spinous Lizard, or Mountain Devil, 

 Moloch //orridus. This species is found very abundantly in the semi-tropical district 

 of the Gascoigne, in Western Australia; it also inhabits parallel latitudes of South 

 Australia, and has been rarely taken in central Queensland. The earliest notice of 

 this singular lizard occurs in the Hon. Sir George Grey's " Journals of Discovery 

 in North- West and Western Australia," published in the year 1841. In this volume 

 there is also given an excellent figure of it, accompanied by its technical description by 

 Dr. J. E. Gray, then Keeper of the Zoological Department of the British Museum, 

 to which the specimen was consigned. 



The reason why such formidable appellations as " York Devil " and " Mountain 

 Devil," by which this species is popularly known in Western Australia, have been 

 conferred upon it, is difficult to find, for there is probably no other representa- 

 tive of its class that is possessed of less potentiality for hurt or evil. Doubtless 

 the appearance conveyed by the chevaux de frise of spines and tubercles, with which 

 its body and limbs are armed at all points, added to the horn-like development of 

 the two anterior head spines, represent the chief attributes that have linked this 

 harmless lizard with so dire a name. Did this small species, which rarely exceeds 

 six or seven inches in length, attain to the dimensions of a crocodile, or even that of 

 some of the larger Monitors, it would reasonably take rank among the most 

 formidable-looking of living creatures. It is not so many years, indeed, since 

 such a huge fossil representative of Moloch horridus was supposed to have been 

 discovered, and was described and dilated upon as such in eloquent terms by the 

 late Professor Sir Richard Owen, under the title of Megalania prisca. According to 

 that accomplished physiologist's original description, this terrible reptile was no 

 less than fourteen feet or more long. It possessed a flattened skull somewhat 

 resembling that of an ox in shape, 1 foot 10 \ inches in breadth, and that was armed 

 with as many as nine horn-like prominences. This skull and several joints of a 

 long, hollow tail sheath, which bore a singular resemblance to that of the extinct 

 gigantic Armadillo, Glyptodon, represented the basis upon which this lacertilian type 

 was established. Further material, however, derived from the same source, the 

 Australian tertiary deposits, and also those of Lord Howe Island, off the Australian 

 Coast, elicited the fact first demonstrated by Professor Huxley, that these fossil remains 



