06 THE REPTILES OP EGYPT. 
scales scattered among them ; or the body-scales generally much larger than the 
ventrals, unequal, strongly keeled and mucronate, and sometimes well marked off from 
the scales on the sides. Ventrals smooth or indistinctly keeled. Limbs covered with 
equal, keeled, imbricate scales. Caudal scales keeled. 
The males have a rudimentary gular pouch ; prseanal pores in one or two lines, 
sometimes present in females. 
General colour faint pinkish grey, sandy or greyish brown above, some of the larger 
scales brighter coloured than the others, especially in the case of specimens with 
a coarse lepidosis ; light brown, quadrangular dorsal spots or cross-bars, arranged as in 
allied species, may be present or absent ; throats of the males in the breeding-season 
suffused with brilliant blue, with darker longitudinal lines, sometimes white and spotted ; 
the females also have their throats occasionally with faint black lines ; under surface of 
body usually white, but in some the ventral area is covered with blue reticulations, and 
the sides are rich violet ; the prashumeral pit in both sexes deep blue, but frequently 
there are four short longitudinal brownish nuchal lines, and, in some, cross brownish 
bars on the top of the head between the eyes. The specimens from the sea-face of 
the delta are generally greyish speckled with blackish, the enlarged scales being pale- 
coloured and the tail banded. 
Measurements of an adult male and female. 
cJ . Snout to vent 83 mm., tail 115 ram. Ramleh. 
? • „ 78 „ „ 82 ,, Fayum. 
It lives exclusively on insects. In gravid females I have generally found 9 or 10 eggs. 
Is. Geoffroy describes this species as one of the most interesting zoological discoveries 
made by the French Expedition to Egypt, in the end of the last century. He says it 
is subject to such sudden and rapid changes of colour that had it been known to the 
ancients it would have completely thrown the chamseleon into the shade. I kept one 
of these lizards alive for some time ; but, while it was under my observation, the only 
change of colour it manifested was a slight intensification of the brighter hues on its 
sides, after it had lain in the sun for some time. There was no real change, but only 
a brightening up of the colours already present. My observations, however, were 
made in the winter months, when the lizard was very sluggish. 
It is distributed over North Africa from Egypt to Algeria and the Algerian Sahara, 
and ranges a considerable distance up the Nile valley. 
The Arabs apparently do not distinguish between it and A. pallida and A. sinaita, 
as they all go under the name of Jjik" Ji = kadi el jib&l, or judge of the desert — 
possibly in allusion to the way in which these lizards are frequently seen with raised 
heads as if they were surveying their surroundings. 
The variations in the length of the skull and in its proportions to the tibia are very 
considerable. 
