48 
REPTILES. 
Order LACERTILIA. 
Family LACERTID^. 
Lacerta vivipera, Jacci. Common Lizard. 
" Not uncommon, especially on the moors between Aultna- 
gealgach and Loch Urigill" (Alston and Harvie-Brown). 
Common almost everywhere in the east of the county. 
" Common in moorland districts, and about the margins 
of hill lochs. I caught one some years since, and took it 
home with me, and kept it for a considerable time alive. 
My children fed it with house-flies, which it would only eat 
alive, and w^ould catch one whenever it found it moving. 
One day when I was at breakfast, they came telling me the 
lizard had laid five eggs. I was rather surprised at this, 
knowing it always went under the name viviparous, but 
there they were, five eggs, and no mistake, about the size 
and colour of a Scotch tare, but flatter, and rather oblong. 
In less than an hour these eggs produced five young lizards, 
little black miniature crocodiles, tail, feet, and everything 
complete" (W. Eeid, in MSS.). 
Ols. — Pennant (Caledonian Zoology) and Sibbald (Scotia 
Illustrata, p. 11) both speak of the Lavellan, which the 
former speaks of as noxious to cattle. Pennant in his 
British Zoology speaks of its identity as somewhat doubt- 
ful: "I imagine it to be the same that the inhabi- 
tants of Sutherland call ' the water mole,' and those of 
Caithness the 'Lavellan,' which the last imagine poisons 
their cattle." Sibbald says {loc. cit.), " Lavellan animal in 
Cathanesia frequens, in aquis degit, capite mustelae sylvestri 
simile, ejusdemque coloris bestia est." Fleming asks what 
this Lavellan is, and whether it can be considered to be 
the water shrew, but Mr. Nicholson, presently living in 
Caithness, who has heard the name used, and the animal 
