LIZARDS. 317 



rushed down, and was just in time to cut off his retreat into 

 the adjoining swamp. Turning sharply round, he made a snap 

 at my leg, and received in return a ' Eowland for his Oliver ' in 

 the shape of an inch or so of cold steel. After wrestling on the 

 ground, and struggling through the deserted fire of our sable 

 cook, I at length secured the runaway, tied him up to a post, 

 and to prevent further mischief, ended his career by dividing 

 the jugular. The length of this lizard from actual measurement 

 Ewas five feet ten inches and a half.' 



These semi-aquatic, dingy-hued ^ saurians are admirably 

 idapted to the hot moist swamps and shallow lagoons that 

 fringe the rivers of the tropical alluvial plains. As we watch 

 [their dark forms, plunging and wallowing in the water, or 

 sluggishly moving over the soft and slimy mud, the imagination 

 is carried back to the age of reptiles, when the muddy shores 

 )f the primaeval ocean swarmed with their uncouth forms. The 

 luge lizard, six or seven feet long, to which divine honours 



re paid at Bonny on the coast of Gruinea, belongs most likely 

 bo this amphibious class. Undisturbed, the lazy monsters 

 jrawl heavily through the streets, and as they pass, the negroes 

 reverentially make way. A white man is hardly allowed to 

 look at them, and hurried as fast as possible out of their 

 >resence. An attempt was once made to kidnap one of these 

 lull lizard-gods for the benefit of a profane museum, but the 



msequences were such as to prevent a repetition of the offence, 

 for all trade and intercourse with the ships in harbour was 

 immediately stopped, and affairs assumed so hostile an aspect, 

 that the foreigners were but too glad to purchase peace with a 

 considerable sacrifice of money and goods. When one of these 



lards crawls into a house, it is considered a great piece of 



food fortune ; and when it chooses to take a bath, the Bonnians 



lurry after it in their canoes. After having allowed it to swim 



a stretch, and to plunge several times, they seize it for fear of 



danger, and carry it back again to the land, well pleased at 



once more having the sacred reptile in their safe possession. 



The formidable name of Flying Dragons has been given to a 

 genus of small lizards, remarkable for the expansible cutaneous 

 processes with which the sides are furnished, and by whose 

 means they are enabled to spring with more facility from 

 branch to branch, and even to support themselves for some 



