174 In Touch with Nature. 



the snakes, which fact I deplored. It was not so 

 long ago that the lively lizards in New Jersey pine 

 barrens had given me much to do to gain some 

 insight into their life-history, and now I recalled 

 each time, place, and circumstance, as these same 

 animals darted over the rocks and between the 

 scattered cacti. The surroundings were not dis- 

 similar : was there any peculiarity of habit ? I 

 could detect none. The lizards were as swift, but 

 still a little strategy enabled me to capture them 

 with my hands, and they straightway became 

 tame, as had proved the case in the East, while 

 the wary skinks defied all my efforts to capture 

 them, and even when badly wounded by bird-shot, 

 bit me savagely, — an Eastern experience also. Let 

 him who will attempt to explain why these ani- 

 mals, with essentially the same habits, and con- 

 stantly associated, differ in this one respect of 

 temper. In New Jersey the skink is a solitary 

 animal, and lives in hollows of old trees, often 

 twenty, thirty, or fifty feet from the ground, — 

 locations the common lizard seldom visits, — which 

 may or may not explain the difference of temper 

 of the two animals ; but here, on this Arizonan 



