CH. I1.] LARGE LIZARD IN SPAIN. 171 
butable merely to age or disease. On mentioning 
the subject to a station-master on the railway 
near Wimborne, a very intelligent man, who had 
ample opportunities for forming an opinion with 
regard ta it (Lizards being extremely abundant 
in that neighbourhood), he said he “knew posi- 
tively” that there were two kinds, adding that 
one of them was poisonous, and the other harm- 
less, the two being easily distinguishable when 
in motion, as the one then carried its tail erect ; 
the other horizontally. As a proof that one 
species was poisonous, he assured me that he 
had seen one spring at, and hang on to, the face 
of his cat, when shaken off from which he killed 
it, with one of her “smellers” (whisker-hairs) still 
in its mouth; and that the cat's head swelled to 
a great size in consequence of the bite. I give 
the story as he told it me, for what it may be 
worth, merely adding my conviction that he stated 
what he believed to be the fact. 
The largest Lizard that I ever saw was in 
Spain, in the south part of Estremadura. I was 
riding along a rough bridle-road, in the outskirts 
of one of the extensive tracts of woodland which 
form so peculiar a feature of that part of the 
country, when I was startled by something break- 
