A N O L I S. 



121 



rior only, as in A. cygnea ; the fourth species is oval 

 or rounded, auriculated at both ends, as in A. trape- 

 zialis ; and the fifth is much more auriculated, with a 

 lengthened blade, and much more salient at the hinge, 

 as in A. Dipsas, of which Leach has formed his genus 

 Dipsas. 



Lamarck enumerates fifteen species ; but it is 

 certain that more must exist in those countries over> 

 which scientific research is now rapidly extending. 



ANOLIS. A genus of saurian reptiles belonging 

 to the family Iguana, having, like the rest of that 

 family, teeth on the palate, and resembling the lizard 

 agamas (Pokfchna of Cuvier,) of which the marbled 

 lizard of Guiana is the type more than any other 

 genus. They also have some resemblance to the 

 Geckos ; but still they possess sufficient characters of 

 their own for constituting them a genus. 



Anolis equestris. 



Their most distinguishing character, and the one 

 in which they are intermediate between the genera 

 that have been mentioned, is the structure of the 

 feet. These in the lizard agamas are covered with 

 scales on the whole of the under part, and in the 

 geckos that part is without scales, and formed into 

 adhering pads or suckers, by means of which they 

 can run up or down a perpendicular wall, or even 

 along the ceiling of a room or the roof of an oven 

 with the back undermost. The anoles have scales 

 on the under sides of the terminal joints of the toes 

 only ; the next joints are extended into soft pads, 

 but these have not the property of adhering, so that 

 the animals can neither walk with the back under- 

 most, nor ascend a perpendicular surface in any 

 other way than by holding on with the claws. 



Their haunts correspond, of course, with the struc- 

 ture of their feet : they do not inhabit places so 

 humid as those sometimes inhabited by the lizard 

 agama?, and they do not climb so exclusively as the 

 geckos. They inhabit places which are dry, some- 

 times on the ground or the rocks, and sometimes on 

 trees, in the holes of which they usually nestle, but 

 they do not climb to any considerable height. They 

 are agile and lively, leaping much, and one of the 

 chief uses of the pads on the toes is to break their 

 fall, or make it easy, though it also prevents their slip- 

 ping upon the irregular substances over which they 

 pass with much rapidity and ease. The claws, insteac 

 of being flattened, as in those genera which walk 

 chiefly upon the earth and occasionally on humic 

 ground, are long, round, considerably hooked, anc 

 have some resemblance to those of climbing birds. 



The head is rather elongated and straight, anc 

 covered with small five-sided or six-sided scales 

 The body is rather slender and firm, the ribs 

 being united to each other below, and forming i 

 series of rings all round the body. The tail is in al 

 the species as long as the body, and in some longer 

 tapering to a point, compressed in some and nearly 



round in others. In those which have it compressed, 

 he processes on the upper part of the vertebrae are 

 >roduced, and support a row of scales, which form a 

 serrated ridge or keel, continuous from that of the 

 upper part of the body. Those in which the tail is 

 nearly round have the serrated keel along the ridge 

 of the body, but not on the tail. 



In both, but most conspicuously in those that have 

 he tail compressed, the hind legs are much longer 

 and stronger than the fore ones ; so that, while, in 

 walking, the arm from the elbow downwards is 

 nearly perpendicular, the knee joint is bent till the 

 jeel almost touches the thigh. This structure in- 

 dicates considerable power in leaping by the exten- 

 sion of the knee joint ; and the formation of the 

 ;ongue shows that the animals must take their prey 

 ay leaping. The tongue is not protrusile beyond 

 the mouth, nor divided, or furnished with fibres, or an 

 adhesive liquor, or any other means of prehension : 

 it is smooth, and adheres to the floor of the mouth 

 for nearly the whole of its length. The animals 

 cannot therefore capture their food with the tongue, 

 but must leap at it and seize it with the jaws. That 

 structure necessarily gives much more liveliness of 

 motion than if they lay in wait, and used the tongue 

 as a snare in the capture of their food. It is to be 

 presumed also that they live upon larger prey than 

 the tongue-feeding saurians. Their food is not ex- 

 clusively animal, for some of them climb trees, or 

 shrubs at least, and feed upon berries. They have 

 the power of inflating the throat to a very consider- 

 able extent ; but the use of that operation in any 

 reptile (or fish) possessing the means of performing 

 it, is not known. 



All the species, of which there are about eight, 

 are inhabitants of the warmer parts of the American 

 continent. They are most numerous within the 

 tropics, but some of them are met with in the 

 southern parts of the United States. They are al- 

 ways found in dry places, and generally where there 

 are hard and shrubby plants, but seldom in the 

 thick forests in the bottoms. 



It has often been stated by authors that they 

 answer the same purpose in the Western continent, 

 as the chameleons do in the Eastern ; but the struc- 

 ture and habits of the two genera are so different, 

 that no useful or even possible analogy can be es- 

 tablished between them, any more than between the 

 greyhound and the glutton, which, comparing one 

 class of animals with another, is about the best com- 

 parison that can be made. The chameleons have 

 anisodactylic feet : all the toes of the anoles are 

 free. The chameleons have prehensile tails : the 

 anoles have not. The chameleons have the power 

 of distending the skin of the whole body, by the 

 copious inflation of their ample lungs : the anoles 

 merely inflate the throat, without any particular re- 

 ference to the operation of breathing. The cha- 

 meleons have very large and prominent eyes, though 

 in great part covered by the eye-lids ; and they can 

 look two ways at once, to such an extent of di- 

 vergent squinting, as almost to command the whole 

 horizon : the eyes of the anoles are of moderate 

 size, placed like those of the majority of animals, 

 and looking both the same way. The chameleons 

 are Hers in wait, and capture the whole of their food 

 by means of the tongue, which is protrusile to per- 

 haps a greater proportional extent, and with more 

 rapidity, than that of any other animal : the anoles 



