TRUE LIZARDS. 



161 



Portugal and Spain, where it is represented by a variety, it extends in France as 

 far north as Paris, but it is unknown in Sardinia. In place of resorting, like the 

 pearly lizard, to trees, this species is usually found on the ground, more especially 

 in districts where the subsoil is rocky, ranging from the sea-level to a height of 

 some three thousand feet, and being equally at home on the plains or among the 

 mountains, in stony or sandy districts, on bare rocks, or among thick bush. As 

 rapid as lightning in its movements, it feeds chiefly upon large insects and their 

 larvae, together with slugs and worms ; living in grassy districts almost entirely upon 

 grasshoppers, and at times attacking smaller species of its own tribe. In Switzer- 

 land and Germany the female usually deposits her eight to eleven white eggs 



Sand-Lizard. 



GREEN LIZARDS ( liat. size). 



during June, these being hatched in the course of a month or so; and it is 

 generally during the breeding-season that the blue on the throat is assumed by 

 this sex. 



The third European representative of the genus is the much 

 smaller sand-, or hedge-lizard (L. agilis), which is a more northern 

 form, ranging into the British Islands and Scandinavia. Usually not more than 

 8 inches in length, although occasionally measuring nearly 10, this lizard may be 

 recognised by its short, thick, and blunt-snouted head, and by the tail being 

 considerably less than twice the length of the head and body. Never having more 

 than fifty-eight scales round the middle of the body, it is further distinguished by 

 the rostral shield of the head being separated by a small interval from the nostrils, 

 VOL. v. ii 



