E U M A T R A. 
half; the breadth) including the horn, fix and an half; length, from 
beak to tail, four feet; wings, four feet, fix inches; height one 
foot; length of neck, one foot: the beak is vvhitiihi the horn^ 
yellow and red; the body black; tail white and ringed with black; 
rump, and feathers on the legs, down to the heel, white: chiws, three 
before and one behind i the iris, red. In a hen chick, there was no 
appearance of a horn, and the iris was whitilb. They eat either boiled 
rice, or tender fleih meatr 
Of reptiles there is fome variety. The lizard fpccies are in abun- ^'^r^' 
dance; frona the cokj}'y which is ten or twelve inches long, ^nd makes a 
very fingular noife, to the fmalleft houfe Hzard, of which I have feeci 
fome fcarce half an inch in length. They are produced from eggS, 
about the fize of a wren*s. A remarkable circumftance refpefting them^ 
which I do not find mentioned in the accounts of any writer, is, that 
on a flight fbroke, and Ibmetimes through fear alone, they lofe thek 
tails ; which foon begin to grow again* The tail may be feparated, with 
the fmalleft force, and without any lofe of blood, or evident pain to 
the animal, at any of the vertebra. The grafs lizard is a fpccies be* 
tvvcen thofe two* There is, I believe, no clafs of living creatures, in 
which the gradations may be traced with fuch minutencfs and regularity, 
as in thist From the fmall houfe lizard^ abovemcntioned, to the largeft 
aligator or crocodile, a chaLo may be obferved of innumerable links, of 
which the remote ft will have a ftriking rcfembknee to each other, and 
fecm, at fir ft view, to differ only in bulk. The houfe lizard is the 
largeft animal that can walk in an inverted fituation : one of thefe, of 
fizc fufficient to fwallow a cockroach, runs on the cieling of a room, and 
in that pofture, feizes it's, prey with the utmoft facility. This they are 
enabled to do, from the rugofe make of their feet, with which they ad- 
here ftrongly to the fmoo theft furface : fometimes however, on fpring- 
ing too eagerly at a fly, they lofe their hold, and fall to the ground. 
They are always cold to the touch, and yet the tranfparency of the bo- 
dies of fome of them, fliew us that their fluids have as briik a circu- 
lation as in other animals ; in none that I have fcen, is the periftaltic.mo- 
tioiii 
