LORQUINIA 
Published by the Lorquin Natural History Club 
(Organized— August 1913) 
Volume II 
^fumber 2 
Los Angeles, Cal., September 1917 |]i**Pe"'Ye«r 
SOME FEEDING HABITS OF THE DESERT ROUGH- 
SCALED SWIFT 
(SCELOPORUS MAGISTER. Hallowell) 
Far out on the wide reaches of the bright Mojave Desert, the 
Desert Rough-scaled Swift pursues the manifold activities of his life 
as he scampers about on the tall tree-yuccas that stretch their sun- 
baked arms and point their spiny fingers aimlessly at many points of 
the almost perpetually blue sky. Here he hides from the terrific heat 
of the mid-day sun, coming forth in the mornings and evenings to 
earn his living, to associate with other lizards and to eye the world 
intelligently with the two little beady black orbs that glance sharply 
from the sides of his powerful blunt head as he lies where he allows 
the steady rays of the strong sun to beat his rough-scaled body and 
fill him with pent-up activity that displays itself with characteristic 
suddenness in many desert animals. In the winter, the Desert Rough- 
scaled Swift is not to be seen abroad, because snow whitens the land- 
scape of the desert places and the nights are bitterly cold. 
During June of 1916, as noted in Lorquinia No. 2, Vol. 1, one 
Desert Rough-scaled Swift with other interesting specimens of rep- 
tile fauna was brought from near Yucca, Arizona, by a Club member, 
R. Lyttle. This lizard and two others of the same species from the 
vicinity of Victorville, California, were kept by me in a large wooden 
terrarium with a screen top, through which light, sunshine, air and 
flies could enter. 
The colors of the lizards were somewhat variable, and the three 
lizards themselves varied slightly in coloration. The top color was - 
a gray sprinkled at times with tiny blue specks. The under surface is 
brilliantly marked with two long green blotches on the body and one 
on the throat, the adjacent edges being confined by black lines. On 
the shoulders are two black marks, while laterally there are several 
varying bars of rich orange, yellow or blue, with faint black markings 
interspersed. When eating, or when excited on a hot day, the Rough- 
scaled Swift shows ofif these markings to better advantage than ordi- 
narily. If I knew all there is to know about the why and how of the 
color changes of this interesting lizard, I should probably be able to 
