256 ' Transactions.— Zoology. 
about one inch, or a little less, from the fly, when as quick as light the dart 
is made, and the fly is caught; and then the little lizard rapidly knocks 
about its prey from side to side as a terrier with a rat, not however striking 
the fly against anything, merely shaking it. After a short time so spent 
the lizard proceeds to swallow the fly, which it does by half opening its 
mouth and drawing it in, and generally, after three or four movements of this 
kind, the fly is gulped down whole—legs and wings and bristles! Notwith- 
standing its struggles, I have been surprised at two things here: (1.) that it 
does not matter how the fly (or moth) is seized, whether by head or tail or 
side, down it goes, in despite of its long legs and wings; and (2.) that such a 
very small throat as the young ones have can so readily swallow a 
tolerably large fly (or moth) whole, and that, too, without showing any 
outward distention of the throat beneath ; for although it keeps its head 
elevated, you cannot trace the prey going down the lizard's gullet! "The 
larger adult lizards, however, do not knock about their heads with their 
prey in their mouths; they just give the usual two or three movements of 
their jaws, and the fly is swallowed! Sometimes it is one of the largest 
“ blue-bottles." And the young ones, I notice, do not now knock about 
their heads when they have seized their prey so much as they did at first. 
On two or three occasions, when flies have been rather scarce, and the 
little lizards hungry, I have seen when one had got the fly into its mouth, 
the other would make up towards it, arch its neck, and put on the usual 
ferocious look, and, watching the time when the lizard with the fly in its 
mouth should open its jaws to make its swallowing movement, dart forwards 
and lay hold of the part of the fly outside of the mouth of the other. And 
now they both hold on to the fly—the fly getting the worst of it between 
them—and sometimes one and sometimes the other gets the prize; and, on 
more than one occasion, I have seen the fly get away from them after all 
its pinching! and fly and crawl about a little longer; showing that so far 
it was not greatly hurt. They often miss catching the fly when they make 
their dart upon it, for it flies away when the lizard looks stupidly about ; 
the escaped fly flies around the glass, and sometimes comes back to the 
same spot or nearly so, and not unfrequently alights on the lizard's snout ! 
When it does this, the lizard does not seek immediately to recapture it 
i On several occasions, 
when a fly has got into their water-trough, and is there struggling, I have 
seen them climb up and make a dart at it, and so take it in the water. I 
have mentioned moths. On a few occasions, when without flies, I have 
given the lizards a moth or two, of from 1 inch to 14 inches in length, and 
the lizards would catch and eat them just as they did flies, but the down 
would stick to their lips for some time ere they managed to swallow it, 
