THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LIZARDS. 687 



garden and came at my call. If I did not call, it came all the same. 

 As I was accustomed to have hemp seed in my month, it wonld 

 peck at me, picking my beard and mustache furiously till I had 

 satisfied its appetite. It was satisfied that it had tamed me and 

 made me its slave. My lizard is nearly in the same condition. 

 It does not molest me, but when I take the box of worms it rises 

 and snaps them from my hand and even from the box. It is 

 well persuaded that man is the friend of the lizard. It has a 

 delicate ear. When it is called from the end of the room, it turns 

 its head to the right and the left, as if to get its bearings and find 

 the direction whence the sound comes. It can hear the walk 

 of an insect and a worm crawling on the ground. Its vision is 

 likewise good, and it recognizes a meal-worm from a considerable 

 distance. 



The other lizards like their cage ; and toward three or four 

 o'clock in the afternoon they will all, if they are, for example, on 

 the table, start to come down, using the chains to help their 

 descent to the ground, and then climbing back into their abode 

 and hiding by choice in their rag houses. 



The Spaniard, notwithstanding his jealous, vindictive, and 

 vengeful character, is more petted than the others, because we 

 have him constantly in hand, and he is the easiest to take up and 

 exhibit. For this reason too he is best at the little tricks we teach 

 them. But, in view of the stupidity he manifested for several 

 months, there is no doubt that the others, which, as I have said, 

 with one exception became gentle and trustful in two or three 

 days, if they had been the objects of the same careful attention, 

 would have given still more marked proofs of capacity for edu- 

 cation. If I turn the Spaniard on his back and make a sign 

 to him with my finger, he will remain there for some time, but 

 not without showing some impatience and raising his head. The 

 animal is obedient to force, however mildly it may be exercised, 

 but such obedience is a sign of reasoning. 



It can not be denied that all its ways have a perceptible re- 

 semblance to those of the dog, particularly if we take into the ac- 

 count its poverty of means of expression. I saw in the London 

 Zoological Gardens an Australian lizard, high on its legs, with 

 the bearing and head of a greyhound, and very pleasant large eyes. 

 I have forgotten its name. It impressed me as being easy to edu- 

 cate, so far as I could judge of lizards by the face. And what 

 might we not get from large lizards if we should succeed in form- 

 ing a domesticated race ? We should not forget that my animals 

 were captured adult. The conclusion of my long story is that the 

 enormous intellectual differences which we usually assume as be- 

 tween reptiles and the highest mammals probably do not exist, and 

 consequently that there is in the brain of reptiles sufficient avail- 



