CH. II.] LARGE LIZAED 'IN SPAIN. 171 



butable merely to age or disease. On mentioning 

 the subject to a station-master on the railway 

 near Wimborne, a very intelligent man, who had 

 ample opportunities for forming an opinion with 

 regard to it (Lizards being extremely abundant 

 in that neighbourhood), he said he "knew posi- 

 tively" that there were two kinds, adding that 

 one of them was poisonous, and the other harm- 

 less, the two being easily distinguishable when 

 in motion, as the one then carried its tail erect ; 

 the other horizontally. As a proof that one 

 species was poisonous, he assured me that he 

 had seen one spring at, and hang on to, the face 

 of his cat, when shaken off from which he killed 

 it, with one of her "smellers" (whisker-hairs) still 

 in its mouth ; and that the cat's head swelled to 

 a great size in consequence of the bite. I give 

 the story as he told it me, for what it may be 

 worth, merely adding my conviction that he stated 

 what he believed to be the fact. 



The largest Lizard that I ever saw was in 

 Spain, in the south part of Estremadura. I was 

 riding along a rough bridle-road, in the outskirts 

 of one of the extensive tracts of woodland which 

 form so peculiar a feature of that part of the 

 country, when I was startled by something break- 



