LIZARDS 
Written and 
illustrated with 
photographs 
by 
W. SAVILLE- 
KENT, F.L.S., 
F.Z.S. 
STUMP-TAIL, SPINOUS, AND FRILLED LIZARDS. 
es reptile house at the Zoo represents beyond question one of the most attractive 
departments of that perennially popular institution. That prominent imcrement of 
the mystic and the uncanny that has been imterwoven from the earliest ages with 
reptilian organisms—trom the “old serpent” downwards—inyest these creatures with a 
neyer-failing element of interest and attraction to the wonder-worshipping public. Have 
we not among the reptiles, moreover, in the unwieldy crocodiles and their slim relations 
the diversely modified lizards the direct descendants of the terrible dragons and monster 
saurians that lorded it over creation, and that flew or swam or even walked erect, leaving 
their “footprints on the sands of time,’ long before puny man appeared upon earth’s 
shifting stage. Here, surely then, there is to be found abundant recherché manna for the 
mind of the philosopher as well as coarser and more highly-spiced pabulum for the 
palate of the proletariat. 
The lizard section, which is the immediate raison détre of this article, is a somewhat 
agerieved community at the Regents Park, and is looking forward anxiously to the 
happier days of roomier cages and a modest apportionment of outside space wherein, like 
the big felines in the adjacent department, they can stretch their limbs and take natural 
exercise in the genial sunshine. As year follows year they have disconsolately witnessed 
cage after cage filched from their 
heritage for the accommodation 
of their unscrupulous cousins the 
snakes; while a crowning in- 
justice, in their opinion, was the 
annexation of one of their most 
commodious compartments for a 
pair of Australian lungfishes. 
The reptile house in its 
entirety as it now exists would, 
as a matter of fact, be none too 
large for the adequate housing 
of the lizard tribe alone, of which 
many hundred interesting types, A FAMILY PARTY. 
NOW unrepresented, might be Chameleon, Jew Lizard, Horned Lizard, and Tree Lizard. 
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