110 CLASS REPTILIA. 



The Land Monitor ofEgypU Ouaran el hard of the 

 Arabs. Lacerta Scincus. Merr. Geoff. Egypt. 

 Rept. iii. 2. 



With compressed, trenchant, and pointed teeth ; tail 

 almost without keel, and remaining round for a 

 greater length. Its habits are more terrestrial ; and 

 it is common in the deserts which border upon 

 Egypt. The jugglers of Cairo employ them in the 

 performance of tricks, after they have plucked out 

 their teeth. This is the terrestrial crocodile of Hero- 

 dotus, and, according to Prosper Alpin, the true 

 scincus of the ancients.* 



Africa and the East Indies produce a great num- 

 ber of monitors with trenchant teeth like the 

 foregoing, but the tail of which is still more com- 

 pressed than that of the Nile. 



The most common in the Indian Archipelago is 



The Double-handed Monitor, Lacerta Bivittata, 



Kuhl. 



White underneath, black above ; with five transverse 

 ranges of white spots, or white rings. A white 

 band along the neck ; and an angle formed by the 

 white of the breast, which rises obliquely over the 

 shoulder. There are some three feet long.t 



* M. Fitzinger makes of this species his genus Psammosaurus. 

 t To this species attach, from the distribution of the colours, the T. Bi- 

 garre, Daud. Lac. Varia, Shaw. Nat. Misc. 83, J. White, 255, of New 



