ORDER SAURIA. 217 



less deep. We have copied Dr. Harlan's figure of this ani- 

 mal, which he describes as specifically distinct, under the 

 name Agama cornuta, but which Cuvier identifies with the 

 orbicular lizard. 



This animal most generally inhabits the mountains and 

 rocks of Mexico and Terra Firma, where the inhabitants also 

 name it tapayaxin, according to the traveller, Hernandez, 

 Taking in the tail, its most general length is about six inches. 

 Ray informs us that it is by no means dangerous, and that it 

 can be tamed. 



Allied to the agamjB, with femoral pores, is a species of 

 lizard, brought by Captain King from Africa, and now in the 

 British Museum, under the generic name Clamydosaurus. 

 For a description of the species, as well as of the other figures 

 of this order, we refer for the sake of brevity to the table. 



Passing over all the intervening subdivisions, wliich our 

 limits prevent our noticing, and of which we could say but 

 little to interest our readers, we proceed to the division 

 of the Dragons ; premising merely that the Lac. nebulosa 

 of Shaw belongs to Cuvier's subgenus Brachylophus, and 

 that the Lophyrus ogamoides, whicli we have figured from a 

 specimen in the British Museum, is an inedited species be- 

 longing to that genus, which will be found described in the 

 table. 



To no word, perhaps, are attached ideas more extraordi- 

 nary, and of greater antiquity, than to that of dragoti. In 

 all ages, and almost in all countries, the terrified imagi- 

 nations of certain timid men, the fantastic notions emanating 

 from disordered brains, or the interested efforts of char- 

 latanism and superstition, have produced a belief in the 

 existence of fabulous beings, of monstrous forms and redoubt- 

 able ferocity, of supernatural force and address, who were 

 accustomed to carry trouble and devastation into entire 

 provinces, to guard the entrance to consecrated places, or to 



