MANUAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 53 



the size of the brain and the amount of nervous 

 matter is proportionally small, and their motions 

 appear to proceed less from a common centre. They 

 abound more in the warmer regions of the globe, 

 where they remain lively all the year through, while 

 in colder climes they become torpid during the win- 

 ter months. The tj^pical family of Eeptiles is that 

 of Lizards, in which the essential characteristics are 

 well marked, and the individuals belonging to which 

 attain to a more advanced state of development, 

 generally speaking, than any others of the group. 

 Many possess an amount of beauty capable of arrest- 

 ing the attention of any ordinary observer, their 

 hues being rich and varied, and their actions grace- 

 ful and agile. Few exceed in these particulars the 

 handsome Green Lizard, so abundantly met with in 

 the South of Europe, and which may there be seen 

 basking on sunny banks, darting from spot to spot, 

 or retreating hastily under some friendly rock to 

 escape the gaze or the grasp of some too curious 

 stranger. Presenting a striking contrast to this, is 

 a wild, forbidding-looking reptile, aptly named by 

 Gray "Moloch horridus" which, with its short, 

 broad, dark-coloured body, armed at all points with 

 sharp, bristling spines, and with an unshapely head, 

 appears to be the incarnation of some mischievous 

 imp or unclean spirit. The Skinks, with their curi- 

 ously-rounded toes, the Blind-Snakes, with their 

 extremities concealed under the skin, the limb-less 

 Serpents progressing on their belly, or the strange 

 Amphisbaenians, so named from being believed to 



