THE VENUS LIZAKD. 145 



both died, almost on the same day, and both in the 

 process of sloughing. In this operation the skin ap- 

 pears to be first separated from the head ; for in one 

 of these, it was perfectly loose from the whole head, 

 and was removable in one piece, but to the neck and 

 entire body it still adhered by organic union. ♦! 

 suspect that the sloughing of the skin is, at least 

 sometimes, the result of universal excitement. All 

 that I have taken alive, and caged (amounting to 

 many individuals), after most violent behaviour at 

 first, soon sloughed ; usually the very next day. 



The food of this Lizard appears to include both 

 vegetable and animal substances. I was never able 

 to induce one to eat in captivity ; but the dissection 

 of several has given me this result. Thus in one I 

 found hard seeds and farinaceous substance ; in 

 another the fragments of a brilliant CurcuUonidous 

 beetle, and other insects. I once observed a large 

 one on the summit of the mountain, deliberately 

 eating the ripe Glass-eye berries, munching half of 

 one away at a mouthful. 



It would require no great warmth of imagination to 

 identify these sunny, spicy, pomiferous groves with 

 the golden-fruited gardens of the Hesperides, and 

 this fierce, sinister, saw-crested Lizard, with the 

 watchful dragon that guarded them. If I had had 

 the naming of him, I would have called him Ladon. 



THE GRAVE-DIGGER. 



On the earthen floor of the building, formerly used 

 as the boiling-house on Bluefields estate, but now 

 H 



