276 HYDROSAURI. 



from the height above. The specimen of Hydrosaurus 

 giganteus, from the north coast of New Holland, in the 

 British Museum, is seventy-eight inches in length. 

 Many African species, as, for example, the white-throated 

 Regenia (R. albogularis) and the Nilotic Monitor (M. Ni- 

 loticus), also attain a great size. How admirably adapted 

 are these semi-aquatic, dingy-hued Saurians to the hot, 

 moist swamps and shallow log-laden lagoons that fringe 

 the rivers of this densely-wooded island ! The imagination 

 is carried back, while contemplating the dark forms of 

 these Hydrosauri plunging and wallowing in the water, 

 or trotting along deliberately over the soft and slimy 

 mud, to that " Age of Reptiles " in the world's infancy, 

 when the vast muddy shores of the primeval ocean 

 were peopled by those lazy lizard-like monsters, and 

 slow-moving giant Efts, the Mososaurus, which must 

 have been between the Monitor and Iguana, twenty- 

 five feet long with a laterally compressed tail ; the Sau- 

 rodon with its lizard-like teeth; and the Dinosauria 

 and Megalosaurus, large carnivorous Crocodile-Lizards. 

 Along the banks of the fresh-water rivulets of Mindanao, 

 numbers of these great water-loving Lizards are seen, 

 plunging and diving in the dark, still streams, basking 

 on the banks, trotting among the" foliage, or lying 

 flat on their bellies upon the treees thrown across the 

 rivers and stagnant ponds Among these I think I re- 

 cognised the two-streaked Lace-Lizard (Hydrosaurus Sal- 

 vator) and another smaller species, entirely of a dull- 

 brown, In the stream that runs through the village of 

 Anjer, in Java, I noticed also numerous Saurians of this 

 group, of somewhat more sluggish movements, most pro- 



