396 NATURAL HISTORY. 



negro perceiving, dextrously slipped a noose over his head, and with a jerk 

 brought him to the ground. And good sport it afforded to see the creature 

 swell like a turkey-cock to find himself entrapped. We caught more in 

 the same way, and kept one alive seven or eight days ; but it grieved me 

 to the heart to find that he thereby lost much delicious fat." 



The iguana lives in the forests, and feeds, it is said, solely upon vege- 

 table substances, a fact to which it owes its white and tender flesh. It 

 lays about forty eggs in a hollow tree. These eggs are a long oval, about 

 .an inch in length, and are covered with a tough, flexible shell. The natives 

 of the Brazilian forests are very fond of them, but unless their taste is 

 disguised by condiments they have no attractions for the Eurcmean palate, 

 for they have a very oily, disagreeable taste. 



Besides this great iguana there are several other species occupying the 

 forests of Central and South America and the West India Islands. Two 

 somewhat closely related species are found in the Galopagos Islands, that 

 locality strangest in all America in its animal inhabitants. These two 

 forms, although belonging to the same genus, are widely distinct in their 

 habits ; for while one is almost marine in its life, and is found only on 

 the shore, where it feeds on the sea-weeds, the other never ventures near 

 the salt water, but prefers the thickets of cactus and acacia of the interior. 

 In its habits it is much like the prairie-dogs, digging shallow burrows in 

 the parched soil ; and in these they live and lay their eggs. The aquatic 

 form, on the other hand, is a strong swimmer, and can stay beneath the 

 surface of the water for an hour or more. 



Long before America was discovered, every treatise on imnatural his- 

 tory had its account of the dreadful basilisk, and each writer did his best 

 to surpass the description of his predecessor. The upas-tree hi all its glory 

 did not begin to be as deadly as was this reptile. Even the glance of its 

 eye was death. "This poison infecteth the air, and the air so infected 

 killeth all living things, and likewise all green things," says a mediaeval 

 naturalist ; * ; it burnetii up the grass whereupon it goeth or creepeth, and 

 the fouls of the air fall down dead when they come near his den or 

 lodging." So terrible an animal must need have a strange origin. No 

 normal process of development would account for the existence of such a 

 beast. So the story ran that it was hatched from eggs over which a snake 

 or a toad bad brooded. 



When America was discovered, the early explorers found in the forests 

 •of South America and Mexico a curious-looking reptile, which had one 

 point in common with the basilisk of fiction, and so this form at once 

 received the name, and upon it was at once disposed the whole stock of old 

 wives' tales. Tlie basilisk of fiction was the king of reptiles, and wore 



