94 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



to cover, they are carefully swaddled for the nonce in cambric handkerchiefs. The 

 " Bob-tailed Lizard " being the local appellation by which this species of Egernia is most 

 familiarly known in the colonies, these three worthies were, as a matter of convenience, 

 respectively distinguished by the euphemistic titles of " Robert," " Bobbie," and 



" Bob." 



Although there are no less than twelve other known species of the 

 Australian genus Egernia, none of these have the peculiarly depressed, abbreviated 

 spinous tails that characterise the two varieties here figured, and consequently possess 

 but little to distinguish them from the more familiar lizard types. One member of 

 this smooth, elongate, cylindrical-tailed group was observed by the author to be 

 particularly plentiful on Pelsart Island, in the Abrolhos Archipelago, replacing 

 E. Stokesii, which appeared to be exclusively represented in Gun Island, a few miles 

 further north. This species was apparently identical with Egernia Kingii, previously 

 reported from these islands, and was, as mentioned in a preceding page, essentially 

 carnivorous in its habits. This circumstance was practically illustrated by the 

 familiarity of an individual which had taken up its quarters in the mess-room of the 

 camp, and which habitually came out after meals to appropriate any small bones or 

 fragments of meat which had fallen from the table. Probably the carnivorous 

 propensities of this species, in addition to its larger size, will account for the observed 

 absence of the smaller vegetable-feeding Egernia Stokesii on this Island, in which it, 

 E. Kingii, was so abundantly represented. One of the larger long-tailed species of 

 Egernia, E. Cunninghami, from the Australian mainland, is on view, while going to 

 press, in the Regent's Park Menagerie. 



Among the numerous varieties of Lizards kept in temporary confinement by 

 the writer, no others proved themselves so amenable to humanizing influences as the 

 several types previously described and illustrated. Several examples of the Australian 

 Monitors or Varani, locally dubbed "Gooannas," and of species pertaining to the 

 genus Grammatophora, fell thus within the author's purview. Of one of these 

 Monitors or Varani, Varanus varim, popularly known also as the " Lace Lizard," with 

 reference to its skin markings, that came into the author's possession at Brisbane, 

 Queensland, a little anecdote may be appropriately related. The specimen was a 

 handsome one, adorned throughout its body and limbs after its kind with a complex 

 reticulated pattern, and having its throat resplendent with interblending tints of sky- 

 blue and lemon yellow. He was at the best of times a sulky animal and, though he 

 fed well, repulsed all friendly overtures and continually strove to make good his 



