Random Notes on Lizards 285 
The Stellion Lizards are extremely susceptible to the effects of cold. It was very 
chilly the morning I brought them over to my study packed im a box, a distance of 
about a mile from their owner’s. They appeared to be almost dead when I took 
them out in my hand, and suspecting that it was the cold I placed them on a table 
directly in the rays of the warm sun, and the effect on them was almost immediate. 
They at once revived, exhibited considerable strength, and became very active, so much 
so that I feared I should have considerable trouble in getting photographs of them. 
I did not ascertain the sex of these specimens, and for all that I discovered to 
the contrary they may both have been males, or both females, or the two sexes may 
have been represented in them. JI photographed the larger one as it stretched itself 
quietly on an old piece of timber, and upon placing another old dead limb in the 
yertical position they both ran up it together, and I obtained a fine picture of the 
pair as they arrived at the summit. 
Stellions belong to a family of lizards technically known as the Aganide, a group 
containing many different genera, and found distributed throughout the tropical regions 
of the Old World and Central Asia. Some are arboreal in their habits, while still 
others are terrestrial. To the latter belong the stellions here shown, representing as 
they do the genus Agama, containing terrestrial forms of Western Asia. 
In America the Agamid@ are not represented, being replaced throughout the New 
World by the Iguanide. If we compare various species in the two families, however, 
some very striking parallels are to be observed, and these doubtless have been produced 
through the operation of identical causes affecting the organisms in a similar manner. 
In terrestrial species the body is depressed, while on the other hand in the arboreal 
forms, as Mr. Boulenger has pointed out, it is compressed. Again, in the two families 
we meet with species possessing horny processes on the scales of the body, as well as 
still more pronounced ones on the head; while in both families still others develop 
horny spines on the tail. Turning to the arboreal forms of the two families, we meet 
with representatives in each of them having a median dorsal crest composed of a 
series of spine-like processes, resembling in some instances the dorsal fin-rays in ordinary 
fishes. In other species these crests are the result of elongated spines of the dorsal 
and certain caudal vertebre, producing similar results. 
The stellions of the Agamide now under consideration have their parallel exactly 
in Phymaturus palluma ot the Iguanide of the New World. 
The Canarian Lizard reminds me very much of the common American chameleon 
found throughout the southern part of the United States. This lizard of the Canary 
Islands, however, belongs to the family Lacertid@, an Old World group, while Dr. Giinther 
considers our chainzleon to belong to the New World Iguanide and to be a representative 
of the genus Anolis, an opinion entertained by all herpetologists so far as I am aware. 
All the ordinary four-limbed lizards in Europe belong to the same genus that 
this Canarian Lizard belongs to—that is, to the genus Lacerta. Hyven in England 
there are two well-marked species of the Lacertide, viz., the Common Lizard (L. 
vivipara) and the Sand Lizard (LZ. agilis), while the Green Lizard (L. viridis) is 
found on the island of Guernsey. The latter is the largest of the Lacertide within 
this area, though not so large or so well developed as specimens coming from south 
Alpine regions. The viviparous Common Lizard not only occurs in Hngland and 
Scotland, but is also to be found in certain restricted districts in Ireland, and wherever 
found it delights in localities where the heath abounds and banks are common. Rarer 
than any of these species is the Sand Lizard, now I believe found in England only 
in the New Forest and in a few localities in the south. Specimens coming from 
the Continent, where it is abundant, are of larger size and more highly coloured. 
Continental examples may measure as much as nine or ten inches in length. 
