1IO LIZARDS. 



most acute is doubtless that of sight, next to which probably comes hearing. In 

 regard to diet, a few lizards are strictly herbivorous, but the great majority are 

 more or less completely carnivorous ; the larger kinds feeding on small mammals, 

 birds and their eggs, other reptiles, and, more rarely, frogs and fish, as well as 

 many descriptions of invertebrates. The smaller members of the order, on the 

 other hand, are restricted mainly or entirely to an invertebrate diet, the great 

 portion of which consists of insects, worms, and land-molluscs. Nearly all drink 

 by rapidly protruding and withdrawing the tongue; dew affording sufficient 

 moisture to those living on rock or in trees, while some kinds can exist for long 

 periods, or even entirely without drinking. The species inhabiting the warmer 

 regions, save those which are arboreal or aquatic in their habits, pass the hottest 

 and driest season of the year in a state of torpor ; while those in colder regions 

 regularly hibernate, such hibernation, in the case of some of the species inhabiting 

 the continent of Europe, lasting for a period of from six to eight months. As 

 regards their breeding-habits, the majority of lizards lay eggs, which may vary 

 from two to thirty in number, and have generally a soft and leathery covering, 

 although, sometimes furnished with a hard calcareous shell. 



One peculiarity characterising the members of the order cannot be passed 

 over before concluding these introductory remarks. This is the facility with 

 which they are enabled to reproduce lost parts, and more especially the tail. As 

 is well known, in many lizards, when handled, the tail breaks off without any 

 rough usage, and in all or nearly all it will readily come in two if pulled when the 

 creature is seeking to escape, this susceptibility to automatic fracture being due to 

 a cartilaginous band across the middle of each vertebra of the tail in the case of 

 the common lizard of England. Such missing portion of the tail is speedily 

 reproduced, it may be double ; and whereas among the members of the typical 

 family of the order, the scaling of the reproduced portion is like the original, in 

 certain other forms this is by no means always the case. The remarkable circum- 

 stance about the matter is that when the pattern of the scaling of such a new tail 

 differs from the original, it always reverts to that characterising a less specialised 

 and probably ancestral group. It is scarcely necessary to mention that in such 

 an extensive assemblage as the present, only a comparatively small percentage of 

 species, or even genera, can be mentioned, and these but briefly. 



The Geckos. 



Family GECKONID.E. 



Few creatures have given rise to a greater amount of fable and legend than 

 the large group of lizards commonly known as geckos ; such legends being probably 

 due to the nocturnal and domestic habits of these creatures, coupled with the sharp 

 chirping cry from which they derive their name, and their curiously expanded 

 disc-like toes. Absolutely innocuous, they have been credited from the earliest 

 times with ejecting venom from their toes, and of poisoning whatever they crawled 

 over ; while the teeth of one species have been asserted to be capable of leaving 

 their impression on steel. Indeed, so intense is the dread inspired by these little 



