1835.] MARINE AMBLYRHYNCHUS. 281 



found, at least I never saw one, even ten yards in-shore. It is a hideous 

 looking creature, of a dirty black colour, stupid, and sluggish in its 

 movements. The usual length of a full-grown one is about a yard, but 

 there are some even four feet long ; a large one weighed twenty pounds : 

 on the island of Albemarle they seem to grow to a greater size than 

 elsewhere. Their tails are flattened sideways, and all four feet partially 

 webbed. They are occasionally seen some hundred yards from the 

 shore, swimming about; and Captain Collnett, in his Voyage, says, 

 " They go to sea in herds a-fishing, and sun themselves on the rocks ; 

 and may be called alligators in miniature." It must not, however, be 

 supposed that they live on fish. When in the water this lizard swims 

 with perfect ease and quickness, by a serpentine .novement of its body 

 and flattened tail the legs being motionless and closely collapsed on 

 its sides. A seaman on board sank one, with a heavy weight attached 

 to it, thinking thus to kill it directly; but when, an hour afterwards, he 

 drew up the line, it was quite active. Their limbs and strong claws are 

 admirably adapted for crawling over the rugged and fissured masses of 



AmUyrhyncbus cristatus. a. Tooth of natural size, and likewise magnified 



lava which everywhere form the coast. In such situations, a group of 

 six or seven of these hideous reptiles may oftentimes be seen on the 

 black rocks, a few feet above the surf, basking in the sun with out- 

 stretched legs. 



I opened the stomachs of several, and found them largely distended 

 with minced seaweed (Ulvae), which grows in thin foliaceous expansions 

 of a bright green or a dull red colour. I do not recollect having observed 

 this seaweed in any quantity on the tidal rocks ; and I have reason to 

 believe it grows at the bottom of the sea, at some little distance from 

 the coast. If such be the case, the object of these animals occasionally 

 going out to sea is explained. The stomach contained nothing but the 

 seaweed. Mr. Bynoe, however, found a piece of a crab in one ; but 

 this might have got in accidentally, in the same manner as I have seen 

 a caterpillar, in the midst of some lichen, in the paunch of a tortoise. 

 The intestines were large, as in other herbivorous animals. The nature 

 of this lizard's food, as well as the structure of its tail and feet, and the 

 fact of its having been seen voluntarily swimming out at sea, absolutely 

 prove its aquatic habits ; yet there is in this respect one strange anomaly, 



