LIZARDS. 



437 



The genus Cydodus has the scales thick and round, the body with four short, five- 

 toed extremities, and terminated by a rounded tail. The lower eyelids are scaled. 

 C. gigas, of Australia, is one of the largest members of the sub-order. 



Scincus has the body elongated and provided with four limbs, each bearing five- 

 fringed digits ; the head elongated and flat ; palatine teeth present ; openings of the 

 nostrils in the middle of the triangular supranasal shield, and the under eyelids cov- 

 ered with scales. Though once made to include several species, there is now but a 

 single representative. The common or ofiicinal-skink, S. officinalis, is a native of 

 south Africa, and inhabits the more sandy localities, where, by means of its peculiarly 

 shaped feet, it so quickly buries itself beneath the surface, on being surprised, that it 

 seems to glide into an already formed burrow. Though the limbs are well developed, 

 the animal is only an ordinary walker, seldom wandering from its chosen locality, and 

 then only in search of small insects. To bask, half asleep and undisturbed, in the 



j; J,1e^<-^' ■ 



Fig. 253. — Scincus officinalis, common skink. 



sun, seems to be its chief delight, and, when thus indulging itself, is often quite indif- 

 ferent as to what may be going on around it. It has been named ' ofiicinal ' because 

 of the high esteem in which it was held by the medical quacks of the middle ages ; 

 its body, dried and reduced to a powder, being thought to possess the most wonderful 

 virtues, and was prescribed as a specific for nearly every disease of the human body. 



The genus Seps has the body much more elongated than Scincus, the limbs are ter- 

 minated by only three toes, and the lower eyelids are transparent. The legs are 

 very weak, and are used but little as organs of locomotion, the animal being more 

 snake-like in its movements. Its teeth are small and simple, on the jaws only, and 

 adapted to seizing and retaining small insects, worms, slugs, and the like. S. tridac- 

 tylus is of , a gray color, striped with four longitudinal rows of appressed brown dots. 

 To this harmless animal, which inhabits the regions bordering on the Mediterranean, 

 have the ancients given a most frightful character. They maintained, and the belief 



