288 . REPTILES OF BERMUDA. 
and movements so rapid that the flash and rustle of disappearance are 
most often all that tell of its presence, and which, when caught napping 
by the sharp-sighted hunter, in favorite haunts in the wood among the 
rocks or about the buildings, frequently secures freedom by leaving its 
tail as a trophy in the hand of the enemy while retiring, but little the 
worse for the loss, to grow another. Its most common name is “Skink.” 
This name is shared with many other species of the large family to which 
it belongs, a family which has representatives in nearly all the tropical 
and subtropical parts of the earth. In some of the West Indies allied 
species are called “Slippery Backs,” in others ‘‘Mabouia,” and in the 
United States “ Blue tails” and “Scorpions.” 
Captain John Smith mentions the occurrence of lizards on the Ber- 
mudas previous to 1623, but in the same breath says they no longer 
existed at that date. ‘Lizards there were many and very large, but now 
none, and it is said they were destroyed by the Cat.” There is a possi- 
bility that formerly some large species existed here, as at present upon 
Navassa (Metapoceros), or upon the Galapagos (Conolophus and Ambly- 
rhynchus). Yet it is hardly probable that any lizards were entirely ex- 
terminated; it is more likely that the existing species, being without 
enemies and undisturbed, reached a greater size than is possible on the 
islands densely populated as they now are. One can have little idea of 
what the Captain had in mind when he used the word “large.” If there 
had been very large lizards other writers would not have passed them 
without notice. Rev. Lewis Hughes, 1614, says nothing about them. 
Among his statements concerning the animals, after enumerating the 
birds, he says that ‘‘ Here is no kind of beasts but hogges and cattes and 
they but in one or two places which are thought to come at first by 
smooth, with two pores, hinder margin rounded, in thirty-six longitudinal rows, those 
of the flank irregularly ascending backward. Scales of middle of back and belly 
larger, those under the middle of the tail broadest. A small plate on each side of the 
pair of large ones in front of the vent. 
Colors of young light brown on back, dark on flanks, lighter and bluish beneath. 
A dark-bordered white line along each edge of the back from the anterior supraciliary 
to the tail. A similar more or less broken line from below the eye across the ear to 
the hip. Between the white bands the flanks are dark brown. The dark color shades 
into the bluish at the sides of the abdomen. A narrow white band extends along the 
inner edges of the supraciliaries forward around the outer edges of prefrontals. Chin 
and throat yellowish red, cheeks more brown, and top of head reddish brown. Limbs 
and sides of belly and tail mottled with light. With age the white becomes more ob- 
solete, the ground color a more uniform darker brown, and the yellowish red predomi- 
nates on cheeks and crown. Specimens described furnished by Professor Goode, for 
whom they were collected by J. Mathew Jones, esq. 
Very common on the Bermudas, frequenting the old walls and stone heaps in the 
cedar groves (Jones). 
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