4-02 DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



wherever they find it, being displeased with the 

 motion of its head downwards, which they con- 

 sider as a gross imitation of them when they 

 pray. The species named cordjla is covered 

 with very hard scales, and inhabits the Cape ; that 

 which is called the whiptail of Egypt, is found 

 in the deserts of that country, and reaches some- 

 times two or three feet in length. 



The agames, the name given to the fifth genus, 

 are found in every part of the world ; there are 

 twenty-one species of them in the collection ; 

 some are covered with small rhomboidal scales. 

 The varying or changeable agame, discovered in 

 Egypt by M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, changes its 

 colour with still more rapidity than the cha- 

 maeleon. 



Next to the agames are placed the basilisks, or 

 long-tailed lizards (i), the only species of the 

 saurian tribe with radiated dorsal and caudal fins 

 We know but two species of this genus, living 

 in fresh water ponds and rivers of the East 

 India islands ; they are remarkable for their 

 form, but we are totally ignorant of their habits ; 

 there is some reason to believe that they feed on 

 vegetables. 



(1) The basilisk, properly so called, is in no respect the basilisk oi* 

 the ancients. This was the serpent of which so many ridiculous storie? 

 have been reported. 



