OF THE UNITED STATES 109 



Crocodilians. Other structural characteristics, especially of the 

 skeleton, separate lizards from the other orders of reptiles." We 

 have a large number of species and subspecies of lizards in this 

 country — a list altogether too long to think of enumerating here. 

 One of my first contributions to herpetology was published as 

 long ago as 1881 by the U. S. National Museum, the paper giving 

 a description of the skeleton of our legless lizard, popularly 

 known as the " glass-snake " (Ophisaurus). This very interesting 

 and perfectly harmless lizard is quite common iu the woods of 

 our Southern States. A good-sized one may attain a length of 

 eighteen or twenty inches, being of a serpentine form, with no 

 external legs. When struck smartly with a stick, the " glass- 

 snake " usually fractures into a number of pieces, but all the seg- 

 ments are post-anal, and really only take place in the tail of the 

 reptile. There is a popular notion that these pieces may come 

 together again, and grow so that complete recovery results, and 

 things were as before the injury, but this is only one of not a few 

 zoological myths still entertained by the uninformed. The 

 " Glow-worm " of Europe (Anguis) is a similar kind of lizard, 

 possessing an equal brittleness of its caudal extremity. 



Those Spined or Horned lizards (Phrynosonia) of the western 

 part of our country, called Horned tomlx by so many people, are 

 not toads at all, but are representatives of one of the most in- 

 teresting genera of lizards we have in our fauna. 



As I said when writing to The American 'Naturalist from New 

 Orleans in 1883, about our American chameleon (Anolis princi- 

 palis), that under all circumstances lizards are interesting crea- 

 tures, meet them where we may; as one evidence of this, how 

 often do we find them chosen, and that, too, for many ages gone 

 by, as objects to adorn pottery, vases, and china, or modeled in 

 silver and gold to be worn as jewelry, or cast in the baser metals 

 for other purposes, such as bronze ornaments. There is some- 

 thing very mysterious at times, in their very look, their dignified 

 mien, their almost provoking silence; this is changed in us to a 

 sense of curious interest that is quickened as the reptile assumes 

 its livelier air, darts along the tree branch that it may be on. or 

 shoots with the rapidity of an arrow up the trunk of some old 

 tree. This singular interest amounts to positive fascination as 

 we come to know the Anolhlce, and I assure you our little Ameri- 

 can chameleon is one of the most engaging of the group, at the 

 same time being one of the commonest of all the lizards found 



