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BUG AD-HEADED PLB8TIODON. PltstiMloii laticen 



three, white dots upon the surface. The back is marked with a series of broad white bands, 

 generally five or six in number, and having a black patch at either extremity of each 

 band. In another variety, the upper parts are silvery grey, splashed with pure white, and 

 variegated with irregular brown spots. But however great may be the variations, they are 

 all confined to the upper surface, the abdomen, flanks, and under surface retaining their 

 beautiful silvery whiteness. The banded variety is the most common. The Officinal 

 Skink is by no means a large reptile, seldom exceeding eight inches in length, and being 

 generally about six or seven inches long. 



PASSING by one or two genera of considerable extent, such as Hinulia and Mocoa, the 

 members of which are mostly found in Australia, though there are species which inhabit 

 China, Java, the Philippines and New Zealand, we come to a reptile very well known by 

 the popular title of the SCOEPION LIZAED, and called more scientifically, as well as more 

 correctly, the BROAD-HEADED PLESTIODON. 



In spite of the rather alarming name which the terrors of the ignorant have caused 

 them to bestow upon it, the Scorpion Lizard is one of the most harmless, as well as one of 

 the most useful little creatures that inhabit the earth. 



It is a native of Northern America, and is spread over a very large tract of country. 

 This curious Lizard is one of the species that delights in trees, and of which we shall see 

 more in a future page. It generally resides in some tree buried in the depths of the forest, 

 and remains at a considerable elevation above the ground, never liking to make its home 

 less than thirty or forty feet above the earth, and often placing itself at a much greater 

 height. 



The domicile in which this reptile most delights is the deserted home of a woodpecker, 

 which has brought up her little family, and forsaken the burrow which had taken such 

 time and trouble to hollow from the decaying wood. Here the Scorpion Lizard takes up 

 its residence, and here it remains snugly concealed unless it is alarmed by an enemy at 

 the gate of its wooden fortress, when it runs nimbly to the entrance, and pokes out its red 

 head with so threatening a gesture, that its intending assailant, thinking it must possess 



