260 Transactions.— Zoology. 
8 p.m. it had not moved, so also it was at 11 p.m., when I went to bed, 
and when I came down the next morning it was still in exactly the same 
strange position; I now thought it could not easily get out, so I lifted the 
glass to help it, but the moment I did so it scuttled away very fast. 
They always take a most peculiar attitude to void their fæces, which, 
however, they do not perform frequently. I always know when they are 
about to do so (if on the look-out), for with young and old their preparation 
is pretty much alike. They first lift up their tails in a semi-curvature 
towards their backs, then they lift their hind-feet from the floor, and so 
slowly void their one pellet; which done they gently lower their hind-feet, 
and then their tail, and move away. On one occasion I saw the adult 
male lizard, which was quietly at ease among the koromiko twigs, leave its 
lair and climb up into the water-trough ; at first I thought it was going to 
drink, or to bathe in the water, but I was agreeably surprised in noting its 
actions ; having got into the salt-cellar, it placed its feet on both sides, 
cocked-up its big tail, and voided its pellet into the water! That over, it 
leisurely descended to its former resting-place. In their voiding the fecal 
pellet the anus of the animal is produced much more than would be sup- 
posed. Their dung is of a long oval shape 4-5 lines long, and not unlike 
that of a sheep ; it is black in colour, but always with a white adjunct (uric 
acid), somewhat resembling that of a fowl, which portion always appears 
first ; they void rather slowly. Sometimes, especially after eating ‘* blue- 
bottle flies,” the portions of the fly in rather coarse fragments are very 
plain in the deposit. * 
It was highly curious to note what I believed to be the amorous manner 
of the adult male toward the female lizards, This happened early in the 
summer, but the loss of the two females (supra) of course put a stop to it. 
He would chase the female in a peculiar strutting manner round and round 
their cage, moving his head horizontally very regularly and constantly with 
a jerk from right to left, and left to right, until he should lay hold of her, 
which he invariably did by the loose skin on the nape of the neck, when, 
having so eaught her, he was still—sometimes for half-an-hour or more— 
holding quietly on all the time, but on her irying to get loose, which she 
easily did, the same kind of pursuit would follow, to be ended in a similar 
way. As the summer advanced his teasing manner became so constant, and 
evidently to the annoyance of the two females—giving them all no rest in 
their little eage—that I had thoughts of removing him into another, which 
I suppose I should haye done had the two females not died. 
Although I have often handled and stroked them, only on one occasion 
did one of them bite me ; this was the adult male, and I had teased him a 
bit,—but his bite was but a gentle pinch, scarcely perceptible! I have a 
