190 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [17:5— May, 1920 



they were far and away the most interesting, entertaining and 

 wide awake animals I had ever seen, to say nothing about their 

 being ' cute." It was some time before I could accustom myself 

 to what was, to me, their unusual form and style of beauty. I 

 could not look at them without laughing at what seemed to be 

 their artificial and mechanical make up. They were protected 

 almost all over by a natural covering of hard bony armor-plate 

 that overhung so as to form a sort of roof -like projection along the 

 sides. Even the legs, head and ears were similarly covered with 

 these hard but somewhat smaller scales. The skin on the lower 

 sides of their bodies was not so well protected, the scales being 

 thinner and weaker, and a few coarse reddish hairs grew between 

 the scales. On the whole they looked like some sort of joke on 

 the part of nature — like freakish imitations of iron-clads or like 

 gigantic stagy yellowish brown bugs, tile-roofed, or covered with 

 homy shingles, and the strangeness of their forms was only 

 accentuated by their activity and ease of movements. They 

 were nervous, fidgety, interested in everything and everybody, 

 and had an insatiable and fiendish curiosity about everything 

 within their reach, which meant everything except only what 

 was hung high on the walls or from the ceiling itself. For they 

 were poor climbers. 



They showed not the slightest fear of persons, but they were 

 evidently pretty uncomfortable when dogs were about. At night 

 they never stopped a moment, but went and worried like troubled 

 consciences and never never tired. 



They showed no disposition to escape, but I never knew whether 

 this was due to their established domestic habits or to the fact 

 they they had not yet explored all the unknown holes and comers 

 about the place. 



They were first turned out of their prison box in the small house 

 of five or six rooms that I occupied with my traveling servant and 

 cook. The walls of the rooms were plastered, but the floor was of 

 hard tamped earth. Around the walls stood boxes of rocks and 

 fossils, some of them nailed up, others open and in process of being 

 packed, while loose specimens lay upon their labels on boxes, 

 chairs and tables. Here and there were bottles containing alco- 

 holic specimens, and chemicals used in photography, and empty 

 bottles, and near by were trunks containing clothing, notebooks, 

 maps, writing materials, cameras, and all the equipment required 



