288 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



from four to six inches in length, with a long rounded tail, a flat, plump body, short neck, and 

 each of the rather frog-like limbs ends in five large splay digits, four of which have sharp claws. The 

 head is very broad behind the eyes, which are large, prominent, and have an iris with a vertical slit, 

 and the snoiit is short. When it runs, which it does with great rapidity, the body is kept low and 

 the limbs are stuck out, and when it moves over upright surfaces, or runs along back downwards, the 

 flat expansion of the toes and fingers, and the minute sharp claws, enable it to cling on where other 

 things, except insects, would fall. The digits are short, and their bones, very equal in length, are so 

 arranged that they fit into the wrist and ankle so as to radiate, as it were, from a common centre to 

 form nearly a complete circle. The great toe cannot separate itself from the others to extend itself 

 backwards. The lower part of the digits is much dilated and widened, and so is the sole generally. 



TURKISH HEMIDACTYLE. 



This membranous expansion of the skin is furnished with small plates, like scales, following, or over- 

 lapping each other in a regular manner, and there is great variety in this arrangement in the different 

 genera and species. Sometimes the rows of plates are continued right across the under part of the 

 digit, one behind the other ; in others they are more or less curved, or there may be a longitudinal line 

 separating the continuity of the line, and producing festooning or angulation. In the common Gecko 

 the markings are in simple cross lines. The nails, which pass over the top of the expansion before 

 they become free and terminal, are very movable and cat-like, and assist materially in holding on, by 

 getting into minute crevices and ci-acks, whilst the expansion itself acts more or less after the fashion 

 of a sucker of the feet of some Insecta. It is certain that the Gecko will remain fixed with some 

 amount of force in antagonism to that of the gravitation of its body. 



They can cast loose in an instant, and when the hand is just upon them they vanish, as it were, 

 under the eye of their expectant captor. In some of the family there is considerable membranous 

 fringing of the body, tail, limbs, and digits, and in a California!! kind* these last are almost as much 



* Phyllodactylus tulcrculatus. 



