LIZARDS. 95 
escape from the extemporised cage provided in the garden for his occupation. One 
night his efforts proved successful, and after vain though patient searchings he was 
reluctantly given up for lost. The astonishment that was experienced ten days later 
may be better imagined than described, when the returned prodigal was seen in a very 
emaciated and dilapidated condition, struggling vehemently to regain access to his 
former prison-house. During his voluntary absence he had evidently fallen upon evil 
times, possibly been surprised, after the manner of his tribe, in robbing a henroost 
and so narrowly escaped the wrath of an avenging Nemesis as to receive on his hinder 
quarters a blow that was doubtless intended for his head, and which, had it attained 
its mark, would have brought its career to a speedy and ignominious termination. 
The fact that he returned minus his long, handsome tail, which had apparently been 
chopped off at the very stump, lends substantial support to the foregoing tentative 
interpretation. The most interesting point in the episode is the circumstance of the 
creature’s voluntary return to captivity, associated with which he probably carried 
in his brain the reminiscence of a more liberal dietary than fell to his lot in the 
outer world. 
On relating this anecdote of the truant Varanus recently to Dr. G. D. Haviland, 
that naturalist informed the writer that he had had a very similar experience with a 
member of the same genus in North Borneo. A captive specimen in his possession 
similarly made good its escape, and after an absence of four or five days returned to 
the scene of its internment, having evidently a preference for the “ flesh-pots of Egypt,” 
albeit accompanied by durance vile, to freedom and a precarious commissariat in his 
native jungle. 
Certain of the Australian Monitors attain to very considerable dimensions, and 
are by no means desirable subjects to encounter at close quarters with unprotected 
hands. The writer possesses a skin of Varanus varius, previously referred to, from 
the Eucalyptus forests of Gippsland, Victoria, which measures over seven feet in its 
total length, and has claws attached that are as formidable as those of .a large 
tiger cat. Even smaller examples, such as the one signalized in the foregoing 
anecdote, which, previous to curtailment, measured a little over three feet, could use 
its hind talons to such effect that an incautious attempt to pick it up on the occasion 
of the “ prodigal’s return,” resulted in the most gruesome scarifying of the hands of 
the experimenter. The species of Varanus here referred to is an essentially arboreal 
type, preying to. a large extent, in its adult state, on the opossums and their young, 
to whose holes, high up in the hollow gum-trees, they will lay patient siege until 
