ANGLES. 217 



of these, to which I have given the names of the 

 Purple-tailed, and the Pearly-bellied Anoles*, are 

 the commonest Reptiles in Jamaica, at least in St. 

 Elizabeth's and Westmoreland, the districts with 

 which I am familiar. About the walls and rafters of 

 out-buildings, the sides and summits of fence-walls, 

 and similar places, they are continually running, re- 

 minding one, as they dart about in their changeable 

 beauty, of Moore's description, — 



" Gay Lizards glittering on the walls 

 Of ruin'd shrines, busy and bright, 

 As they were all alive with light." 



They are particularly numerous in the lieux, which 



* I have described these, with some other species of Jamaican 

 Sauria, in the Annals and Mag. of N. H. for Nov. 1850, under the 

 names of Anolis iodurus and A. opalinus. Though I feel assured 

 that these are distinct species, it is difficult to establish any unvarying 

 mark of distinction. Colour, in creatures that are so variable, seems 

 an unsatisfactory foundation for comparison or contrast ; yet, except 

 the pale band that runs down the side of the latter, I can discover, 

 even by minute examination under a lens, little of difference. In 

 opalinus, the general form is more slender, the belly rather flatter, the 

 head narrower and longer, and the muzzle more pointed. The tuber- 

 cular plates on the head are less definitely shaped; the large central 

 superciliary plates are divided from the coronal ones by not more 

 than one perfect row of small ones, where in iodurus two or three 

 rows intervene. The scaling on the goitre is coarser in opalinus ,- 

 that is, the scales are larger and more pointed, and the naked inter- 

 spaces wider. Most of these diversities are, it is true, minute, and 

 even microscopic ; yet it is not difficult to distinguish the species 

 when alive, at sight, even at a considerable distance. The scales of 

 the inferior surface are iridescent in both, but chiefly in opalinus, the 

 light from the belly of which, when the angle formed by the incident 

 ray and the reflected ray is very wide, glows with a ruddy golden 

 hue, exceedingly beautiful and opaline. 

 L 



