Zoological Soviet//. 67 



round. I have observed the same application of the tail to purposes 

 of defence in the crocodile, and there can be little doubt that the 

 dentelated crest upon this part of the body of lizards is for the in- 

 fliction of serrated wounds. The lacerations which dogs suffer in 

 attacking the Iguana are remarkably severe. 



" There can be no doubt that the Iguana voluntarily takes to the 

 water ; but whether it delights to refresh itself in that element, as we 

 should be led to suppose by the observation that it sports in it, I 

 cannot learn from any of our people here. The one kept in the 

 Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park was seen to enter and cross 

 a small pond, the fore-feet being motionless during the animal's pro- 

 gress through the water. It is curious, however, that whilst the dry, 

 sterile hills near us abound with Iguanas, the banks of the Rio Cobre, 

 a river so near its haunts, are scarcely ever visited by them." 



After my arrival in England, the above notes coming under review, 

 in my study of the Saurians I had brought home, I was induced to 

 make further inquiry of Mr. Hill, whether in describing the inflation 

 of the pouch, and the defensive action of the tail, he spoke from his 

 own observation. From his reply I extract the following remarks : — 



" The purposes of defence, to which I represented it as 



applying its long tail with its armature of pointed and triple-edged 

 scuta, were suggested to me by the negroes, who were present when 

 I was examining the specimen I mentioned as forty-five inches in 

 length. They warned me to stand out of the reach of its tail, for 

 they saw it was going to turn itself rapidly round to strike. I ob- 

 served a peculiar sinister look it had, derived not from the eye being 

 turned within the socket, so as to indicate the object it was regard- 

 ing, but from the peculiar turn of the head, as if listening and ob- 

 serving. The negroes remarked that in the position in which its tail 

 then lay, it was preparing to strike at me, and that dogs generally in 

 setting upon them received desperate punishment, from the gashes 

 and lacerations that were made into the thick muscles of the legs by 

 the rapid flinging round of the Iguana in defending itself. The sud- 

 den jerk with which it drew back its tail was said to enable it to rasp 

 the very flesh off the bone. The notion expressed about the infla- 

 tion of the gular pouch was the consequence of seeing two very large 

 Iguanas from Cuba, which distended this appendage, and let it col- 

 lapse again. The skin of these animals hung about them, as if they 

 had been fat, and were, at the time I saw them, emaciated 



" An acquaintance has promised to supply me with notes of a pair 

 of Cycluras that inhabited a hollow acacia- tree in his fields (Proso- 

 pis juliflora) for some sixteen months. He supposed them male and 

 female. They differed in size and in tint; and were never, during 

 the whole period of his acquaintance with them, seen on the outer 

 tree both together. Like the pair of weather-indicators in the 

 Dutchman's hygrometer, if one was out, the other was in. For a 

 certain time every morning, one or other would be seen on some 

 extreme eastern branch of the tree sunning itself, by basking at its 

 length in the slant sunbeams that shot within the foliage. Their 

 size and the nimble movement of the tail gave them so much the 



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