ORDER SAURIA. 215 



the stellio of the Ancients, which is represented to us to be 

 a spotted, venomous lizard, hostile to man, and extremely 

 cunning. It may probably, as we have before mentioned, be 

 the tarentole^ or tuberculous gecko, of the south of Europe. 

 Belon was the first who seems to have given rise to this false 

 application of an ancient word. 



In Egypt, according to the relation of this last traveller, 

 and of some others, around the pyramids, and in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the tombs of the Thebai's, they collect, for the 

 purposes of oriental pharmacy, the excrements of this reptile, 

 which were also anciently employed in Europe as a cosmetic. 

 The Turks still make some use of it, after the example of 

 those coquettes of ancient Rome, of which Horace speaks in 

 his Epodes : — 



« Nee illi 



Jam manet— colorque 



Stercore fucatus crocodili." 



Be this, however, as it may, the Mahometans pursue and kill 

 it, because, say they, it mocks them, by lowering its head, as 

 they do when engaged in their devotions. Fortunate would 

 it have been for the world, if superstition had never produced 

 any worse result than the destruction of a comparatively 

 harmless reptile ! 



Passing over Doryphorus and Uromastix, which latter 

 genus includes the Stellio spinipes, Avhich we have figured 

 from a specimen in the British Museum, and which is de- 

 scribed at p. 121, we shall say a word or two on the Agam.e. 



The name of this genus is peculiar to the natives of Ja- 

 maica, and was employed by them to designate a species of 

 lizard. 



The characters of the agamae are a body covered with 

 tubercles, toes and tail rounded, a head bulky, cordiform, 

 covered with scales, and a tongue very short and fleshy. 

 Their toes are not opposable, which distinguishes them from 



