THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LIZARDS. 683 



story. I do not even know — although, like observations ought to 

 be made on domestic animals like the dog — that the bearing of 

 them as traits of animal psychology has been brought out. My 

 Spaniard is certainly a lizard apart. He is somebody. 



But before going into individual details, I will add the final to 

 the incidents which I have already given concerning my lizards. 

 I have had them three years, and they have kept in admirable 

 health. They have not hibernated, for the house has been kept 

 warmed all the time, and their cage has been near a register. 

 They have therefore been all the time wide-awake and very 

 active. From this we conclude that hibernation is not organic 

 with them like the rest of plants, and that it is a consecutive of 

 cold weather, which causes besides the disappearance of the in- 

 sects on which they feed. 



Their food, therefore, does not necessarily consist of living prey. 

 They eat with the same appetite the remains of beetles, such as 

 the skeletons of night borers, and all decayed or dried chrysalides. 

 Last year, the cabbage butterfly being extremely abundant, I col- 

 lected a stock of chrysalides which they devoured to the last one. 

 They always refused raw and bloody meat. Nevertheless, when 

 they were forced to swallow it, which was not easy, they di- 

 gested it. 



They are said to be fond of grapes, and in vine-growing coun- 

 tries, I was told, hunt for the fruit. But with me they never 

 wanted grapes, not even the southern variety or the dried raisin. 



On the other hand, they are fond of dates, and attacked them 

 with avidity the first time they saw them. I made them up some 

 balls of dates as large as a good-sized grape, of which they were 

 able to swallow three or four one after another I received other 

 ocellated lizards last year, and they all liked dates, one of them to 

 my surprise gulping down a whole one in a wink. It agreed with 

 him perfectly, his digestive powers, as I took pains to observe, 

 proving adequate to dispose of the stone in a proper manner, al- 

 though my friends feared that it would be caught in the sinuosi- 

 ties of the intestine, with perhaps fatal effects. It seems that this 

 animal estimated rightly the capacity of his digestive apparatus. 

 The preceding curious feature in the present case is that all the 

 lizards at once recognized an eatable fruit in the date, although 

 they had never seen or tasted dates or anything like them. They 

 may have eaten figs at home, but they refused dried figs. 



All my lizards lived, I might say, in freedom. During our 

 summers in the country, they had a large room with latticed 

 windows, with sunshine on three sides. They had stones and 

 boxes of every sort, and for a gymnasium convenient scaffoldings 

 furnished with rags in which they climbed, hid, and chased one 

 another with evident amusement. 



