952 The Zoologist — October, 1867. 



Mr. Hailing, in his ' Birds of Middlesex,' seems to think there are different species of 

 the reed-warbler; I believe be is right. — A. Clark-Kennedy. 



The Lizards of Labuan. By Dr. Collingwood. 



The commonest of the lizards of this island, and indeed of the whole 

 region, is the little animal called chick-chack {Ptyodactylus gecko), so 

 named from the chirping noise it makes from time to time, and which 

 might at first be mistaken for the voice of a bird. It is perfectly 

 harmless, and often very familiar. They live in considerable numbers 

 within doors, concealing themselves upon the roofs, and among the 

 attaps, or palm-coverings, or crawling about upon the walls and 

 ceilings. I have counted as many as two dozen overhead while I 

 have been at dinner in a good-sized room, some as long as my hand, 

 and usually pale-coloured. They vary, however, somewhat in colour, 

 according to food and locality. I have been informed by credible 

 friends of instances in which they would habitually come down upon 

 the table and take food offered to them, and it is equally certain that 

 they occasionally come down involuntarily, losing their precarious 

 footing overhead while in chase of an insect, in which case they fall 

 with a thump upon the floor or table, an accident which usually 

 results in the loss of their tails, which break off with the shock or the 

 fright, and it is by no means unusual to see them with their short 

 stumpy caudal appendages in process of reproduction. Such an 

 occurrence happening in the night T have found rather startling. If a 

 moth or a butterfly flutters about near the ceiling, the chick-chacks are 

 all upon the alert, running at it as it passes near them, and although 

 the reptile may succeed in catching it, the insect is often too unwieldy 

 for them, and they have considerable difficulty in securing it. They 

 clear the house of mosquitoes and flies, however, and are never 

 molested, but, on the other hand, always encouraged. A singular 

 circumstance occurred to the colonial surgeon, who related it to me : 

 he was lying awake in bed when a chick-chack fell from the ceiling 

 upon the top of his mosquito-curtain ; at the moment of touching it, 

 the lizard became brilliantly luminous, illuminating the objects in the 

 neighbourhood, much to the astonishment of the doctor, who had 

 never before witnessed such an occurrence. 



Another lizard of a larger size than the last is the barking lizard, 

 which lives in trees and also about houses, from time to time betraying 



