170 



LIZARDS. 



in medicine as an infallible remedy for almost every disease under the sun ; its 

 reputation as a healing agent still surviving among the Arabs, by whom the flesh 

 of the creature is used both as a drug and as an article of food. The exclusive 

 haunts of the skink are sandy districts, where it generally moves in a slow and 

 deliberate manner, and when frightened buries itself in the soil instead of 

 attempting to seek safety in flight. Indeed, the celerity with which the reptile 

 sinks into the sand is described as being little short of marvellous, suggesting the 

 idea of its escaping into some hole already existing rather than of excavating a 

 fresh burrow for itself, such a burrow not unfrequently extending to the depth of 

 several feet. During the daytime the skink, if quietly approached, may be 

 observed quietly reposing in the sun by the side of one of the small hillocks or 

 ridges raised in the sand at the base of trees by the wind ; and from such a state 

 of idleness it is only roused by the approach of a beetle or a fly, upon which it 

 darts with unerring aim. In spite of its strong teetli or claws, when captured, the 

 skink never makes any attempts to defend itself, beyond struggling vigorously. 

 Of its breeding-habits, little or nothing definite appears to be known. According 

 to Canon Tristram, the flesh of a few well-broiled skinks forms a dish not to be 

 despised even by a European palate. 



Under the title of CJialkis, the ancient Greeks designated a 



' remarkable snake-like lizard inhabiting Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily, 



as well as Algeria and Tunis, which was known to the Romans bv the name 



O c 



of Scps-. the latter being in allusion to the poisonous properties with which 

 this perfectly harmless reptile was supposed to be endowed. The "seps" 

 (C/ialcidcs tridactylus) is the typical representative of a genus of some twelve 

 species belonging to the present family, which exhibit a most interesting example 

 of the gradual degradation of limbs, some species having five toes to each foot, 

 while in others, as the figured example, the number of digits is reduced to three ; 

 and in one kind the limbs are represented merely by undivided rudiments. 

 The bronze lizards, as the members of the genus may be collectively termed, 

 belon^ to an assemblage of irenera differing from all those already noticed in 



<"""> ^ O O t/ 



that the nostrils are pierced either in or close to the terminal rostral shield of 

 the skull, instead of being more or less widely separated therefrom. In the case of 

 the present genus the nostrils are situated in notches cut in the hinder border of 

 the shield in question; while the body is greatly elongated, and the limbs are 

 either short or rudiniciital. The figured kind is one of two species with three- 

 toed limbs, and attains a length of 1'H inches, of which about half is occupied by 

 the tail. In colour it is olive or bronzy above, and may be either uniform, or 

 marked with an even number of darker and lighter longitudinal streaks. In the 

 .south of France, Spain, and Portugal, it is replaced by the smaller striped bronze 

 lizard (C. luifufii..*), in which tin; body is marked with nine or eleven longitudinal 

 stripes. The range of the whole genus embraces Southern Europe, Northern. Africa, 

 and South- Western Asia, from Syria and Arabia to Sind. 



The three-toed bron/e lizard much resembles the blind-worm in general 

 appearance and habits, frequenting damp places, where abundance of its favourite 

 worms, snails, slugs, insects, and spiders are to be met with. Here it moves with a 

 wriggling serpentine motion similar to that of the blind-worm, which it likewise 



