94 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
to cover, they are carefully swaddled for the nonce in cambric handkerchiefs. The 
‘“ Bob-tailed Lizard” being the local appellation by which this species of Egernia is most 
familiarly known in the colonies, these three worthies were, as a matter of convenience, 
respectively distinguished by the euphemistic titles of ‘ Robert,” “ Bobbie,” and 
“ Bob.” 
Although there are no less than twelve other known species of the 
Australian genus Egernia, none of these have the peculiarly depressed, abbreviated 
spinous tails that characterise the two varieties here figured, and consequently possess 
but little to distinguish them from the more familiar lizard types. One member of 
this smooth, elongate, cylindrical-tailed group was observed by the author to be 
particularly plentiful on Pelsart Island, in the Abrolhos Archipelago, replacing 
. Stokesit, which appeared to be exclusively represented in Gun Island, a few miles 
further north. This species was apparently identical with Egernia Kingii, previously 
reported from these islands, and was, as mentioned in a preceding page, essentially 
carnivorous in its habits. This circumstance was practically illustrated by the 
familiarity of an individual which had taken up its quarters in the mess-room of the 
camp, and which habitually came out after meals to appropriate any small bones or 
fragments of meat which had fallen from the table. Probably the carnivorous 
propensities of this species, in addition to its larger size, will account for the observed 
absence of the smaller vegetable-feeding Egernia Stokesii on this Island, in which it, 
E. Kingii, was so abundantly represented. One of the larger long-tailed species of 
Egernia, E£. Cunninghami, from the Australian mainland, is on view, while going to 
press, in the Regent’s Park Menagerie. 
Among the numerous varieties of Lizards kept in temporary confinement by 
the writer, no others proved themselves so amenable to humanizing influences as the 
several types previously described and illustrated. Several examples of the Australian 
Monitors or Varani, locally dubbed “Gooannas,” and of species pertaining to the 
genus Grammatophora, fell thus within the authors purview. Of one of these 
Monitors or Varani, Varanus varius, popularly known also as the “ Lace Lizard,” with 
reference to its skin markings, that came into the author’s possession at Brisbane, 
Queensland, a little anecdote may be appropriately related. The specimen was a 
handsome one, adorned throughout its body and limbs after its kind with a complex 
reticulated pattern, and having its throat resplendent with interblending tints of sky- 
blue and lemon yellow. He was at the best of times a sulky animal and, though he 
fed well, repulsed all friendly overtures and continually strove .to make good _ his 
