LIZARDS— GECKOES— ANOLIS. 



629 



It was big enough to take the man's thigh in his mouth, and he would probably have 

 been killed and devoured by it, had not his cries brought out his neighbors who 

 destroyed it with their choppers. As far as I could make out, it was about twenty 

 feet long ; but Ali's was probably much larger." 



The Tropical World may well be called the head-quarters of the lizard race, as 

 nowhere else do these reptiles appear in such multitudes or in such diversified forms 

 of genera and species. The stranger is astonished by their numbers as soon as he sets 

 foot on a tropical shore ; for on all sides, on the sands and in the forests, on soft banks 

 and hard rocks, on trees and on the ground, lizards of every variety of size, form, and 

 color, are seen darting, climbing, crawling, and rustling. 



The Geckoes, one of the family, may be fairly claimed as belonging to domestic 

 animals, since they take up their abode in the dwellings of man, where they make 

 themselves useful by the destruction of spiders, flies, and other noxious or disagreeable 

 insects, which they almost always swallow whole, their throat being as broad as the 

 opening of their jaws. During the daytime they generally remain concealed in some 

 dark crevice or chink, but towards evening they may be seen running along the steepest 

 walls with marvelous rapidity, in keen pursuit of their prey, frequently standing still, 

 nodding with their head, and uttering shrill tones, most likely by smacking their tongue 

 against the palate. Their flattened flexible body seems to mould itself into the hol- 

 lows, in which they often remain motionless for hours, and their generally dull color 

 harmonizes so well with their resting-places, as to render them hardly distinguishable ; 

 a circumstance which answers the double purpose of masking their presence from the 

 prey for which they lie in wait, and from the enemies that might be inclined to feast 

 upon them. Among these, some of the smaller birds of prey — hawks and owls — are 

 the most conspicuous, not to mention man, the arch-persecutor of almost every animal 

 large enough to attract his notice. 



How comes it that these nocturnal lizards, seemingly in defiance of the laws of 

 gravitation, are thus able to adhere to our ceilings or any other overhanging surfaces ? 

 An inspection of the soles of their broad feet will soon solve the enigma, for all their 

 toes are considerably dilated on their margins, and divided beneath into a number of 

 transverse lamellae, parallel to each other, and generally without any longitudinal fur- 

 row. From these a fluid exudes which serves to attach the animal to the surface. They 

 are also generally provided with sharp and crooked claws, retractile and movable, like 

 those of a cat, and which render them good service in climbing the trees. 



In spite of their harmless nature, the Geckoes — their real utility being forgotten 

 over imaginary grievances — nowhere enjoy a good reputation, probably in consequence 

 of their ugliness and the wild expression of their large eyes. They are accused of 

 tainting with a virulent secretion every object they touch, and of provoking an erup- 

 tion on the skin merely by running over it — a popular prejudice which naturally causea 

 many a poor inoffensive Gecko's death. They abound all over the torrid zone, even in 

 the remote islands of the Pacific, such as Tahiti and Yanikoro. Dumeril enumer- 

 ates fifty-five different species, only two of which are indigenous in Southern Europe, 

 while India monopolizes no less than thirteen for her share. 



The graceful Anolis are peculiar to America. By the structure of their feet, pro- 

 vided with long unequal toes, they are related to the Geckoes, but are distinguished 



