AFRICAN L I L Y A G A M A. 



ami because we elevate die animals to the rank of 

 rational and reflective beings, we are often under the 

 necessity of degrading ourselves to that of mere 

 machines. Animals have no previously formed plans 

 to be overturned, and no prejudices to be got the 

 better of. The causes of their affections are all con- 

 temporaneous with the affection itself ; and they are 

 all physical and open to our knowledge ; so that, if we 

 can by any means bring them about, we can com- 

 mand the affection of the animal and turn it to use, 

 as certainly as we can model clay, or kindle a fire, 

 and melt a metal. 



AFRICAN LILY (Agapanthus). A half-bul- 

 bous, stemmed, green-house, herbaceous perennial. 

 Linnaean class and order, Hcxandria Monogynia. Natu- 

 ral order, Hemerocallidea;. Generic character : calyx, 

 petaloide and tubular at the base, funnel-shaped, in six 

 divisions, somewhat irregular. Stamens six, declining. 

 Style one. This is one of the most beautiful of the lily 

 tribe. With a little protection during winter it suc- 

 ceeds well in the open air, if placed under a south wall ; 

 there are three species. 



AGAMA, a very numerous genus of reptiles, 



Hclmeted Agama. 



belonging to the order Sauria and the family Iguana, 

 to which the reader is referred for the more general 

 characters. They have no common English name, 

 and the local names given to the different species are 

 neither very appropriate nor are they useful. They 

 all come under the vulgar name of lizards, and so far 

 as they were known in his time they belong to the 

 genus Laccrta of Linnaeus. Since then, enough has 

 been added to their history to show that his arrange- 

 ment was wrong, but not enough to put it to rights. 



The whole history of reptiles is, indeed, in a very 

 imperfect and even chaotic state ; and as the disco- 

 veries are only additions of species or varieties, of 

 whose habits and economy very little, if indeed any 

 thing, is known, they tend to make more confusion. 

 There are, in most large collections, many species 

 that are not even named, while, of most of those that 

 have names, the characters are founded on the mere 

 shape of the parts, without any reference to their uses 

 in the economy of the animals. This is unavoidable, 

 inasmuch as we know by far too little of the relation 

 between the structure and the habits of any one spe- 

 cies to enable us to proceed by analogy. 



In the other classes of vertebrated animal, the 

 case is different. When we meet with a new species 

 of the mammalia or the birds, we not only know 

 where to place it in the system, but from its organic 

 structure we can tell many of its habits, and generally 

 also its haunt, can know, in short, to what part of 

 nature it belongs, and what function it performs in 

 its general operations, can state with tolerable ex- 

 actness over what part of nature it is set, to keep 



down the redundance by its feeding, and what is set 

 over it, to keep down its redundance. Of the habits 

 of fishes we know much less ; but we know enough 

 to enable us to guess at the habit from the form. But 

 the reptiles are quite a puzzle. The four orders of 

 them are so different, not merely in their external 

 powers, but in the fundamental principles of their 

 systems, that they might be made four distinct classes. 

 A frog and a snake are, for instance, in many respects 

 more unlike each other than one of the mammalia 

 and a bird. 



Thus, the popular natural history of reptiles is, of 

 necessity, confined to the individual instances of those 

 species which are popularly known; for though a 

 generalisation, grounded upon museum specimens, 

 may be of much use to those who are occupied about 

 them, and may form the foundation according to 

 which knowledge, when it is obtained, may be ar- 

 ranged ; yet it cannot be made instructive, or even 

 amusing to ordinary readers. For these reasons, our 

 notices of reptiles, excepting the well-known species, 

 will be more brief than those of the other vertebrated 

 animals. We have stated the reasons in order that the 

 general ignorance of zoologists, in which we of course 

 partake, may not be charged against us individually ; 

 we have stated them thus early, because the articles 

 REPTILE and SAURIA, come late in the alphabetical 

 arrangement ; and having done so, we shall briefly 

 enumerate the known characters of the agamas. 



Generally speaking, they are rather uncouth, and 

 even somewhat repulsive in their appearance. Their 

 heads are thick and round, or rather ear-shaped, 

 being much enlarged anteriorly ; and the throat, and 

 sometimes part of the body, is capable of being inflated 

 to a considerable degree. The body is short, generally 

 thick in proportion to the entire length of the animal ; 

 and the tail is, in general, long and round, though in 

 some species it is compressed or flattened laterally. 

 They are wholly covered with small scales, of a lozenge 

 or else an hexagonal shape. These appear reticu- 

 lated, but the posterior edges are free, and when the 

 skin is inflated they stand up like small spines. The 

 legs are rather slender for the size of the animals ; 

 and the toes are five on each foot, all free and armed 

 with claws a little hooked. The toe next to that 

 which answers to the thumb, (though it does not act 

 as such) is generally the longest ; and in some of the 

 species it, and the one next it, are much longer than 

 the rest. These, like the rest of the iguana family, 

 are easily distinguished from the lizards, by the struc- 

 ture of the tongue, and the arrangement of the scales 

 on their bodies. The tongue of the lizards is long, 

 slender, extensible, and divided into two filaments at 

 the tip ; while that of the agamas is short, thick, fleshy, 

 not extensible, and merely a little cleft at the 

 extremity. The scales on the lizards are arranged 

 in parallel rows or bands at right angles to the axis of 

 the animal, while, on the agamas, they are reticulated 

 or impriential. The scales on the tail again distin- 

 guish them from the nearly allied species, STEI.LIO, 

 in which the scales are verticellate, or arranged in 

 rows found the tail, each scale with a spine more or 

 less projecting, and each ring forming a sort of star, 

 or stellar arrangement of points ; while, in the agamas, 

 the scales on the tail are imbricated or reticulated, 

 as well as those on the body. The scales of the 

 agamas are carinated, and often produced into spines 

 of considerable length, especially on the hinder part 

 of the head. The differences of the scales, which 



