214 Zoological Society, 



I have named this species after my friend Mr. Hugh Low, who 

 has much enriched our knowledge of the natural productions of 

 Borneo. 



3. On the Habits of Ameiva dorsalis. By P. H. Gosse. 



This species is one of the most common of the reptiles of Jamaica, 

 and is as beautiful as abundant. Its colours are striking, but not 

 showy ; its countenance has a very meek expression, not altogether 

 unlike that of a deer or antelope. All its motions are elegant and 

 sprightly ; when it is proceeding deliberately, its body is thrown into 

 lateral curves the most graceful imaginable ; but when alarmed, its 

 swiftness is so excessive that it appears as if it literally flew over the 

 ground, and the observer can scarcely persuade himself that it is not 

 a bird. 



The Ground Lizard (as it is provincially termed) is generally dif- 

 fused, as far as my knowledge of the island extends, but chiefly afi^ects 

 sandy places. Near the sea-side it is particularly abundant, beneath 

 the shore- grasses, nickers, and black- withes that form an almost im- 

 penetrable belt of thicket a few yards above high- water mark. Here 

 the dry leaves and twigs are rustled all day long by the fleet-footed 

 Ameiva, as it shoots hither and thither among them, or walks at 

 leisure, picking up little atoms of food. Though excessively timid, 

 so that it is almost impossible to approach them, I have found that 

 by sitting down in their haunts, and remaining for some time per- 

 fectly still, one and another will come forth from their coverts and 

 pursue their avocations without fear. They pick among the sand 

 exactly in the manner of a bird, and scratch it away with the long 

 and flexible fore-feet, using them alternately as the common fowl 

 does, now and then stopping and raising the hind-foot to scratch the 

 head. 



I am told (and have no doubt of the factj that it digs for itself the 

 burrow in which it resides. It is accused too of digging still deeper, 

 to get at the seed-corn when just sprouting, and of eating the ger- 

 minating grain to such an extent as to be mischievous. Of such as 

 I dissected, however, I found the food to consist principally of insects. 

 Thus on one occasion the stomach was occupied with a v;hole cock- 

 roach, and the intestines were filled with fragments of another. In 

 the stomach of one shot in November I found many dipterous mag- 

 gots, fragments of beetles, and one or two seeds of berries. A third 

 contained cockroaches, a caterpillar, some maggots and small beetles. 



On one or two occasions, as when one has been suddenly alarmed, 

 I have noticed a singular action in this animal, which then carries 

 its body the whole height of the legs above the ground, and runs as 

 it were on tiptoe in a very ludicrous manner. 



While speaking of its progression, I may observe, that though the 

 toes are not formed like those of the Geckos and Anoles, for holding 

 on against gravity, I have seen a large Ameiva run with facility on 

 the side of a dry wall, along the perpendicular surfaces of the large 

 stones. 



A gravid female was brought me early in May, in whose dilated 

 abdomen I found four eggs, two on each side, disposed longitudinally. 



