NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 197 
physiognomy to be useless as a guide in the formation of higher 
groups, and the characters afforded by the scales deceptive and 
unreliable, unless considered in relation with other characters. 
He prefers, like Prof. Cope, to lay more stress on osteological 
characters, and on the structure of the tongue. He attaches 
special importance also to the presence or absence, and the 
structure of dermal ossifications on the head and body, which are 
found to correspond with many other characters. 
He divides the order Lacertilia, then, into two primary groups, 
the Chameleons on the one hand, and all the other Lizards on the 
other. The Amphisbenians, which by nearly all recent authors 
are separated as a suborder, or even as an order, he includes 
among the true Lizards, and regards them as a degraded type of 
the Teiide, with which they are to some extent connected by the 
Chalcides and their allies. 
Leaving the Chameleons to be dealt with last, he commences 
with the true Lizards (Lacertilia Vera), which suborder he divides 
into twenty families, regarded as perfectly natural groups. Of 
these twenty families the volume before us deals with five only, 
the greater portion of this instalment being occupied with 
the Geckos and their allies, which are represented in all the 
warmer parts of the globe, but are most numerous in the Indian 
and Australian regions. 
The habits of the Geckos, says Mr. Boulenger, are highly 
interesting, and deserve special attention, since few observations 
have been made on them. Some inhabit arid regions, sometimes 
burrowing in the sand; others are arboreal, living on shrubs or 
in woods, concealing themselves under stones or under the bark 
of trees during the daytime; others live on rocks; others have 
become the commensals of man, and they again may be divided 
into two groups—those living inside, those living outside houses. 
Most are nocturnal, but some are diurnal. Col. Tytler, in a very 
interesting paper on the habits of Geckos, observes that, 
“Although several species of Geckos may inhabit the same 
locality, yet, as a general rule, they keep separate and‘ aloof 
from each other; for instance, in a house the dark cellars may be 
the resort of one species, the roof of another, and crevices in the 
walls may be exclusively occupied by a third species. However, 
at night they issue forth in quest of insects, and may be found 
mixed up together in the same spot; but on the shghtest 
