THE CRESTED ANOLIS. 



81 



There is an old proverb, " No smoke without fire," and. this saying is verified in the 

 present case. In some parts of Tropical America there is a perfectly harmless Lizard of no 

 great dimensions, belonging to the family of the Iguanas, and having a bold crest on the 

 back of its head. It is probable that one of these reptiles was imported into the Old 

 World at some time now forgotten, and that its rather odd shape and the crest on its head 

 were seized upon by the first describers, and reported with continually increasing exagge- 

 rations by succeeding writers. 



Like the rest of the Iguanas, this animal is a good climber of trees, it can swim well, 

 and its food consists apparently of insects and the various little creatures which frequent 

 the water and the foliage of its banks. 



Although quite innocuous, it certainly is rather forbidding, and when it obtains its 

 greatest length of three feet, presents a sufficiently formidable appearance to warrant in 

 some degree the wild and fabulous tales which were deduced from its strange shape. 

 Along the back, instead of the row of pointed spines which generally cross the back of the 

 Iguanas, runs a broad crest-like membrane, another broad membrane occupying the upper 

 surface of the tail. These curious appendages are supported by a series of slender bones, 

 formed by elongations of the vertebrae of the back and tail, so that the animal looks 

 exactly as if the fins of a fish had been grafted on the body of a reptile. There is a slight 

 pouch on the throat, and the palate is toothed. 



CRESTED ANOLIS. Xiphoturug 



MANY species of the Lizard tribe are called by the name of Anolis, but are divided by 

 systematic zoologists of the present day into several distinct genera. The CHESTED 

 ANOLIS inhabits some of the hotter portions of America and the neighbouring islands. 



The chief point of interest in this Lizard is the curiously expansile throat, which, in 

 common with others of the same genus, it is able to expand at will. When terrified, it 

 tries to escape, but if it finds itself deprived of all means of eluding its antagonist, it turns 

 to bay, and by puffing out the throat until it assumes a very great size, endeavours 

 thereby to intimidate the foe. While thus engaged, the creature has the faculty of 

 continually altering its colour; the hues of the body to a certain degree, but more 

 especially those of the throat, changing with a rapidity that is said even to surpass the 

 famed powers of the chameleon. 



It is an active little creature, traversing perpendicular objects with nearly as much 

 ease as the Gecko, and to aid it in these movements the last joint but one of the toes is 

 3. G 



