i68 



LIZARDS. 



one of the most remarkable genera in the entire suborder. With a short, 

 pyramidal depressed head of great width, a short but distinct neck, a long, thick, 

 and flattened body, and a very wide and stumpy tail, the creature is clothed with 

 an armour of rough, thick, brown scales, which give it very much the appearance 

 of a living pine-cone. On the lower surface, the scales are smooth and much 

 smaller. The small and stout limbs are widely separated, and terminate in five 

 short toes, each provided with strong curved claws. In length this strange reptile 

 measures about 14 inches, and its colour above is brown with spots or irregular 

 bands of yellow, while beneath it is yellowish, with brown spots, marblings, or 

 longitudinal and transverse streaks. The cheek-teeth have subconical crowns. 

 Beyond the fact that it is a burrower, scarcely anything appears to be known of 

 the habits of the stump-tailed lizard in a wild state, although many .observations 

 have been made on captive specimens. In the latter state it is slow and lethargic 



EUROPEAN SNAKE-EYED LIZARD (nat. size). 



in its movements, creeping about with the abdomen pressed to the ground. Its 

 chief food consists of worms and insects, although fruit and vegetables are 

 occasionally eaten; and that it can endure long fasts is proved by an example 

 which only ate two or three flies during the voyage from Australia. 



Snake-Eyed Very different in appearance to the last is the lizard (Ablepharus 



Lizards. pannonicus) represented in the accompanying illustration, which 

 belongs to a genus containing a number of small species distributed over Australia, 

 South- Western Asia, South-Eastern Europe, and Tropical and South America, one 

 of which (A. boutoni) ranges irregularly over the hotter parts of both the Eastern 

 and Western Hemispheres. These lizards differ from all their kin in having no 

 movable eyelids, their place being taken by a transparent disc of skin stretched 

 over the eye after the manner of snakes. In this genus the ear may be either 

 open or concealed by scales ; and while some of the species have well-developed 

 limbs, in others they are more or less aborted, the number of toes being also 

 highly variable. The figured species, which ranges in Europe from Hungary to 



