OF THE UNITED STATES 



119 



warms his snuff-brown coils, alone, dreaded and shunned. All 

 rejoice that this happy season once more opens, and the feeble 

 grasp of the winter god is withdrawn. Where is Anolis now? we 

 have not far to go, indeed, to find our bi-colored masquerader; 

 see the emerald-clad scamp as he eyes you from the brawny limb 

 of the pecan, under which you stand. But what is he up to! 

 You quietly watch him, and his employment seems to be of such 

 a nature that he soon completely ignores you, and proceeds with 

 it at all risks, and at all costs. The mystery is soon solved, and 

 we can readily appreciate this agitation, this bowing and strut- 

 ting and all manners of oddmotions,as if the very last drop of his 

 quaint lacertilian blood was on fire for coyishly, and with all 







FIG. 29. RIGHT LATERAL VIEW OF THE HEAD OF HELODEKMA 



SUSPECTUM. 



Life size. From a photograph of the living specimen, by the Author. 



due deference, reclines before his lordship his chosen mate, ex- 

 erting her every chameleonic power to hide her blushes by vain 

 endeavors to match the colored pattern of her couch, with all the 

 bronzes and browns at her command. He can withstand her 

 charms no longer, and for the moment, laying aside all dignity, 

 and the object of his affections not unwillingly submitting, in the 

 next instant finds herself in the passionate embraces of her lord, 

 who, to make sure that he has actually won his coveted prize, 

 winds about her lithe form, perhaps in some mystic love-knot, his 

 entire caudal extremity, and blinds her eyes, first on one side and 



