Oct. 1835. 



MARINE LIZARD. 



weighed twenty pounds. On the island of Albemarle they 

 seem to grow to a greater size than on any other. These 

 lizards were occasionally seen some hundred yards from the 

 shore swimming about ; and Captain Collnett, in his Voyage, 

 says, "they go out to sea in shoals to fish." With re- 

 spect to the object, I believe he is mistaken ; but the fact 

 stated on such good authority cannot be doubted. When 

 in the water the animal swims with perfect ease and 

 quickness, by a serpentine movement of its body and 

 flattened tail, — the legs, during this time, being motionless 

 and closely collapsed on its sides. A seaman on board sank 

 one, with a heavy weight attached to it, thinking thus to kill 

 it directly ; but when an hour afterwards he drew up the 

 line, the lizard was quite active. Their limbs and strong 

 claws are admirably adapted for crawling over the rugged 

 and fissured masses of lava, which every where form the 

 coast. In such situations, a group of six or seven of 

 these hideous reptiles may oftentimes be seen on the black 

 rocks, a few feet above the surf, basking in the sun with 

 outstretched legs. 



I opened the stomach of several, and in each case found 

 it largely distended with minced sea-weed, of that kind 

 which grows in thin foliaceous expansions of a bright green 

 or dull red colour. I do not recollect having observed this 

 sea-weed in any quantity on the tidal rocks ; and I have 

 reason to believe it grows at the bottom of the sea, at some 

 little distance from the coast. If such is the case, the 

 object of these animals occasionally going out to sea is 

 explained. The stomach contained nothing but the sea- 

 weed. Mr. Bynoe, however, found a piece of a crab in 

 one ; but this might have got in accidentally, in the same 

 manner as I have seen a caterpillar, in the midst of some 

 lichen, in the paunch of a tortoise. The intestines were 

 large, as in other herbivorous animals. 



The nature of this lizard's food, as well as the structure of 

 its tail, and the certain fact of its having been seen volun- 



2 H 2 



