108 
a weight approaching thirty pounds. This 
species inhabits the warmer parts of America, 
including the West Indies, and lives on trees 
overhanging water, nto which it can jump 
Whenever danger threatens. As the iguana 
does not always look before it leaps, there is 
some danger in human beings going up creeks 
frequented by it; for two stone of lizard 
dropping like the gentle dew from heaven is 
not to be lightly encountered if one wishes 
to keep one’s bones intact. These iguanas 
Photographs by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S. 
TWO-BANDED MONITOR. 
are vegetable feeders, and are themselves 
esteemed as food in the countries they inhabit. 
A hideous piece of cruelty is sometimes 
perpetrated in bringing them to market, the 
tendons of the living reptile’s toes being ripped 
out and employed to tie its feet to keep it quiet. 
We 
THE Monitor shown in the accompanying 
ulustration is a member of a 
group often called Teuanas— 
Two-=Banded 
Monitor. 
Animal Life 
or more usually “Guanas—in India and 
Australia. This name, however, is quite 
incorrect, as the true iguanas are nearly all 
American, and are besides lizards of very 
different appearance, as may easily be seen 
in the examples of both groups here shown. 
Monitors are confined to the warmer parts 
of the Old World, and resemble the larger 
iguanas in beimg of a much bigger size 
than most lizards. They ave, however, very 
different in their feeding-habits, since they are 
carnivorous, and devour animals 
of considerable size, such as rats 
and chickens ; they also prey upon 
the eges of birds. Most monitors 
are more or less aquatic, living 
near the water and frequently 
entering it, in this again re- 
sembling the iguanas. They are 
unfortunate in their names, for the 
book-name ‘‘ Monitor,” or warner, 
is founded on a misconception; the 
Avabie word for lizard, “ Waran,” 
having been corrupted by early 
writers into “ Warn,” so that the 
reptile got a reputation for giving 
warnings which it did not deserve. 
Even when small, monitors may 
easily be distinguished from any 
other known lizards by their 
long necks, heads covered all over 
with small scales instead of large 
plates, and the long deeply-forked 
tongue, which is exactly lke that 
of a snake. 
Wo 
Aquatic LizaArps, when we get 
away from the Moni- 
Lesueur’s 
Water- tors and the Iguanas, 
Lizard. 
are rare, but Australia 
possesses one in the shape 
of Lesueur’s Water-Lizard (Physignathus 
lesuewri). This species and its allies are 
fond of the water, and keep near it in thick 
vegetation. In appearance they distinctly 
recall the iguanas, but belong to a different 
family —the Agamas (Adgamide). These 
agamas fill in the Old World much the same 
place as do the iguanas in the New, since 
each family comprises a great variety of 
types, and these different types often resemble 
