His Researches on Living Reptiles 67 



their neighbourhood for many years, its power 

 of copying the snake. Whether the tongue is an 

 organ of exploration and touch, and whether it 

 is not in some respects analogous to the antennae 

 of insects, the long bristles on the sides of the 

 mouth of animals, also its tail which is invariably 

 used defensively, when in the presence of mam- 

 mals of large size, and probably even as small 

 as a mouse." 



He might have added that he was interested in 

 their mating and in their egg-laying. He even 

 took their body temperatures and examined their 

 excreta, which last procedure is very important 

 in connection with the undigested teeth of copro- 

 lites. On all these points Brown has left copious 

 and careful notes and records. 



We now see what Brown was after, when he 

 was supposed to be keeping a miniature menagerie. 

 It was nothing less than a gigantic one-man effort 

 to re-stock a controlled world of his own, just as 

 it had been millions of years ago. He had set 

 himself the task of writing millions of years of 

 pre-history in one short lifetime. If this lizard 

 is actually, as it is supposed to be, related to the 

 Dinosaurs, how futile he thought that scientists 

 should waste their own time and that of others 

 on guess-work, from the bones and teeth of these 

 monsters, as to what they did and ate ! Was it 



