112 SAUEIANS. 



and the reptile can bite with great force. It is a bold and 

 determined combatant when attacked, and if it succeeds in seizing 

 its foe, retains its hold with pertinacity. Its flesh is eaten by- 

 some people, who consider it excellent. Together with a second 

 species, T. nigropunctatus, it inhabits Brazil, and the two species of 

 Callopistes are also South American, one at least of them occur- 

 ring ia Chili. The species of this family, although strong and 

 agile, never ascend trees, but range at will the hot sandy plains 

 or the dense and damp underwood on the margins of lakes and 

 rivers, into which they plunge when alarmed, and remain below 

 the surface until the danger has passed away, their capacious 

 lungs and imperfect circulation permitting them to endure a 

 very long immersion without inconvenience. 



The Ameivas have a long whip-like tail, and peculiarly 

 elongated toes on their hind feet. The species of Ameiva and 

 Cnemidophorus are numerous, and the genera Dicrodon and 

 Acrantus are founded each of them upon a single species. In 

 general these are Lizards which correspond with the ordinary 

 Lacertida of the Old World. One species only, Cnemidophorus 

 sex-lineatus, inhabits the Southern States of North America ; there 

 are at least four others in Mexico, and the rest belong to South 

 America and the Antilles. " The Ameiva dorsalis," writes Mr. 

 Gosse, '■' is one of the most common of the reptiles of Jamaica, and 

 is as beautiful as abundant. Its colours are striking, but not 

 showy, and. its countenance has a very meek expression. All its 

 motions are elegant and sprightly; when it is proceeding de- 

 liberately, its body is thrown iato latent curves the most graceful 

 imaginable ; but when alarmed its swiftness is so excessive that it 

 appears as if it literally ^e^y over the ground, and the observer can 

 scarcely persuade himself that it is not a bird. It is very timid, 

 and though its toes are not formed as in the Geckos and Anoles, 

 for holding on against gravity, I have seen a large Ameiva run 

 with facility on the side of a dry wall, along the perpendicular 

 surfaces of the large stones." 



A second series occurs in those Teidm which have a collar of 

 large shields on the throat. As many as five genera of them have 

 been established, each upon a single species, and all are from 

 intertropical America. In Crocodilurus lacertinus the two rows 



