SNAKE-LIKE LIZARDS. 145 



spinous scales. The teeth are small, and the rounded tongue is scarcely notched. 

 The figured species (Z. cordylus), which attains a length of rather less than 8 

 inches, generally has the back and tail of a dirty orange colour; the head and 

 feet of a lighter yellow, and the under-parts white ; although there are consider- 

 able variations from this normal coloration. All the members of the genus inhabit 

 rocky districts, and prefer those where there are ledges, upon which they run in 

 search of food or warmth. They are excellent climbers, and far from easy to catch, 

 often leaving their tails with their would-be captors. 



THE SNAKE-LIKE LIZARDS. 

 Family ANGUID^J. 



Nearly allied to the preceding family is a small group of lizards of variable 

 bodily form, typified by the common English blind- worm. Rigid in their bodies, 

 and having large symmetrical bony shields on the top of their heads, these lizards 

 resemble the girdle-lizards in the presence of bony plates beneath the overlapping 

 scales, and also in that the temporal fossae of the skull are roofed over with bone. 

 They differ, however, in that the bony plates beneath the scales are permeated by a 

 series of radiating or irregularly arranged canals ; and also in the conformation of 

 the tongue. The latter is composed of two distinct portions, namely, a thick basal 

 half, covered with villose papillae, and a smaller thin terminal moiety coated with 

 scale-like papillae, which is extensile, and capable of partial withdrawal into a sheath 

 formed by a transverse fold at the front of the basal half. As regards their denti- 

 tion, some forms have tubercular or conical teeth attached to the sides of the walls 

 of the jaws in the typical pleurodont manner; but in the blind- worms the teeth are 

 long, curved, loosely attached fangs, very like those of serpents. Instead of hollow- 

 ing out the bases of the old teeth, as in the preceding family, the new ones grow 

 up beneath them ; and there may or may not be teeth on the bones of the palate. 

 Some of the members of the family agree with the preceding in having a longi- 

 tudinal fold along the sides of the body, while in others it is absent ; and there is 

 a similar variation in external form, some genera having fully developed five-toed 

 limbs, while in others all external traces of these appendages have disappeared. In 

 regard to the covering of the head, it should specially be noticed that there is a 

 large occipital shield at its hinder extremity. All the species differ from the 

 majority of lizards in changing their skin in a single piece, like most snakes. 

 With the exception of some species of the American genus Gerrhonotus, which 

 ascend low bushes, all these lizards live on the ground ; and the whole of them are 

 carnivorous, the larger species preying on reptiles and other vertebrates, and the 

 smaller kinds on insects, spiders, slugs, and worms. While the blind- worms produce 

 living young, the others lay eggs. Containing seven genera and some forty-five 

 species, this family is most numerously represented in Central America and the 

 West Indies, a few species occurring in North and South America, two in Europe, 

 and one in the Himalaya and Burma ; all the forms with functional limbs being 

 American. From limitations of space, our notice of the family will be confined to 

 two of the snake-like genera. 



VOL. v. 10 



