VARAN US GRISEUS. 137 
une espece de waral, ou plutot c'est le waral lui-meme, si ce n'est qu'il a la queue 
courte "; and goes on to say "il fant regarder le scinque comme constituant une espece 
particuliere," because, among other reasons, it differed from the waral in the places it 
inhabited, as it lived in the desert plains and in the water, and was found in the Nile. 
The aquatic habit attributed by Abd-Allatif to the scink suggests the next species, 
V. niloticus; but as he says that whereas the back of the waral is scaly and hard, that 
of the scink, on the contrary, is smooth and soft to the touch, he could hardly have had 
that species in view, more especially as he describes the scink as yellow and black. 
His description of the back and colour of the lizard suggests Scincus officinalis, and 
it is just possible that the aquatic habit attributed to the scink, which is as old as 
the days of Pliny (if V. niloticus was not the true scink), may have been suggested 
by the strongly-fringed digits of S. officinalis, which, at the present day, is known 
as the fish of the sand. 
The circumstance that the Greek historian speaks of this large land lizard as the 
terrestrial crocodile, may probably have originated from the existence in his day of the 
fable believed in by Abd-Allatif, and still current among the Arabs, that it is produced 
from the eggs of the crocodile. The belief was that the young when excluded from 
the egg either betook themselves to the Nile or to land, the former becoming crocodiles 
and the latter warals. 
This species is occasionally seen in the possession of conjurers, as it is supposed to 
be under the influence of music ; but these men take the cruel precaution to break off 
its teeth to prevent it biting, as it is of a fierce disposition. 
The natives, according to Sonnini, say that it sucks the milk from sheep and goats ; 
but this is not the only lizard to which this fable is attached, as Scincus schneideri, 
likewise, is known as the milker of sheep. A similar habit is ascribed by the natives 
of India to the common snake Zamenis mucosus, which is said to suck cows. This 
lizard is also reported when bitten by a snake to search for a particular plant, which it 
eats as an antidote to the poison. 
