GECKO LIZARD, 
53 
of the mouth by yielding laterally during deglutition. The scales of 
the throat also admit of considerable dilation, as they are much more 
remote from each other than any others in the body, and immediately 
under the mouth are separated by a naked expansible membrane. 
I cannot take leave of Java and its animals without saying a few 
words respecting some of the lizard tribe, which, although very inter- 
esting in their habits, have not undergone a very close investigation, 
and have been very seldom and very slightly described. They press 
however, more frequently than is always agreeable, even upon the 
notice of a mere passing visitor in Java. At the approach of even- 
ing, a small species which feed on insects, cover the walls, and pillars 
of houses, and may be seen after their prey in all directions. A 
stranger cannot at first behold them without some degree of aversion, 
but soon looks on them with favour when he finds in them the ene- 
mies of the musquitoes. This species of Lizard, which seldom 
grows beyond the length of five or six inches, may be called the 
house Gecko of Java, and is perhaps the Chichak of* * Sumatra. 
It belongs to the subdivision of the genus Gecko, which the cele- 
brated Cuvier has called Hemi-dactyles , in having the disk which 
covers the base of its toes divided into a double row of imbricated 
plates, and in the position of their second phalanges, f But it differs 
from the described species of this subdivision in wanting a claw to 
the great toe. X It is of a light brownish grey colour, and is covered, 
excepting under the tail, with very small scales, and is without tu- 
bercles : under the tail the scales are large and imbricated. The 
scales when examined with a lens, are found to owe their brownish 
colour to very minute dark-coloured points. It has a rank of pores ex- 
tending down the inside of each thigh as low as the knee. 
* Marsden’s Sumatra, p. 119. 
f Hemi-dactyles ont la base des doigts garnie d’un disque ovale, forme en dessous 
par un double rang d’ecailles en chevron ; du milieu de ce disque s’eleve la deuxieme 
phalange. 
^ Les cspeces connues ont toutes cinq ongles. Regne Animal, tom. ii. p. 47. 
* H 3 
