ORDER SAURIA. 113 



Tlie great American Safe-guard. Teyu-guazUi Te- 

 mapara, Sfc. {Lacerta Teguixin. Lin. and Shaw. 

 Seb. I. xcvi. 1,2, 3; xcvii. 5 ; xcix. 1. 



With yellow points and spots, disposed in transverse 

 bands, on a ground which is black above, yellowish 

 underneath. There are yellow and black bands on 

 the tail. In Brazil and Guiana, it attains to six feet 

 in length. It goes at a rapid rate on land, and takes 

 refuge in the water when pursued. It dives there, 

 but does not swim. It feeds on insects of all kinds, 

 smaller reptiles, and eggs, &c. It inhabits holes, 

 which it digs in the sand. Its flesh and eggs are 

 eaten.* 



Others, called Ameiva, do not differ from the pre- 

 ceding, but in having a round tail, and nowise com- 

 pressed, furnished, as well as the belly, with trans- 

 verse ranges of square scales. Those of the belly 

 are more broad than long. There are American 

 lizards, similar to ours in exterior, and which repre- 

 sent them in that country. But, independently of 

 the want of molar teeth, most of them have no collar, 

 and all the scales of the throat are small. The head 



* The individuals which are dried or preserved in spirits, take a bluish 

 or greenish tint in their clear parts ; and it is thus that they are repre- 

 sented by Scba. But when living, as we have seen them, the clear parts 

 are more or less yellow. Prince Maximilian deNieud has well represented 

 this animal in his eleventh book. 



Add, the Tujnn a tachcs vcrtcs of Daudin, if it be not a simple variety of 

 the Safe-guard. Spix names it Tupmonito?; pi. xix. It is his T. nigro- 

 punclatus which is the true Safe-guard. 



VOL. IX. I 



