LAC 
LAC 
45 
•informed, have been observed in the living 
•animal by Mans. Bruyeres, in his native 
country, viz. Madagascar, where it is not 
very uncommon, and where, though a harm- 
less animal, it is held in great abhorrence by 
the natives, who consider it as of a poison- 
ous nature, and fly from it with precipitation ; 
pretending that it darts on their breast, and 
adheres with such force by infringed mem- 
brane, that it cannot be separated from the 
skin without the assistance of a razor. The 
principal cause of this popular dread of the 
animal, is its habit of running open-mouthed 
towards the spectator, instead of attempting 
to escape when discovered. Its chief resi- 
dence is on the branches of trees, where it 
lives on insects, holding itself secure by 
coiling its tail, short as it is, half round the 
twig on which it sits. It chiefly appears in 
rainy weather, when it moves with consider- 
able agility, often springing from bough to 
bough. On the ground it walks but slowly, 
the fore legs being shorter than the hinder. 
Scinks, zvi h round fish-like scales . 
15. Lacerta scincus, or officinal scink. The 
scink is one of the middle-sized or smaller 
lizards, arid is a native of many of the east- 
ern parts of the world. It abounds in Lybia, 
Syria, Egypt, and Arabia, frequenting mode- 
rately .dry and sandy soils, and growing to 
the length of six or seven inches, or even 
sometimes more. The head of the scink is 
rather small than large, the body thick and 
round, the tail in general considerably 
shorter than the body. The whole animal 
is of a pale yellowish-brown colour, with a 
few broad, dusky, transverse undulations or 
zones, and is uniformly covered with mode- 
rately large or fish-like scales, lying extreme- 
ly close and smooth, so that the surface has 
a glossy or oily appearance. It is an animal 
©f harmless manners, and, like most other 
lizards, supports itself on the various insects 
which wander about the regions it inha- 
bits. 
This animal was once in high estimation 
as an article in the materia medica, and the 
flesh, particularly of the belly, was supposed 
to be diuretic, alexipharmic, restorative, and 
useful in leprous and many other cases ; but 
whatever virtues it may possess when used 
fresh, it is not considered as of any import- 
ance when in its dried or imported state, 
and while it continued to be used in practice 
served only to increase the number of ingre- 
dients in that curious remnant of what Dr. 
Lewis happily terms the wild exuberance of 
medical superstition in former age , the ce- 
lebrated confectio d imocratis, or mithridate. 
Salamanders, Nezvts, or Efls. 
16. Lacerta salamandra. The salamander, 
so long the subject of popular .error, and of 
which so many idle tales have been recited 
by the more antient naturalists, is an inha- 
bitant of many parts of Germany, Italy, 
France, &c. but does not appear to have 
been discovered in England. It delights in 
moist and shady places, woods, &c. and is 
chiefly seen during a rainy season. In the 
winter it lies concealed in the hollows about 
the roots of old trees, in subterraneous re- 
cesses, or in the cavities of old walls, - &c. 
The salamander is easily distinguished by its 
colours; being of a deep shining black, varie- 
gated with large, oblong, and rather irregu- 
L a e 
lar patches of bright orange-yellow, which, 
on each side of the back, are commonly so 
disposed as to form a pair of interrupted 
longitudinal stripes : the sides are marked by 
many large transverse wrinkles, the inter- 
mediate spaces rising into strongly marked 
convexities ; and the sides of the tail often 
exhibit a similar appearance : on each side of 
the back of the head are situated a pair of 
large tubercles, which are in reality the paro- 
tid glands : and are thus protuberant not only 
in some others of the lizard tribe, but in a 
remarkable manner in the genus rana : these 
parts, as well as the back and sides of the 
body, are beset in the salamander with several 
large open pores or foramina, through which 
exudes a peculiar fluid, serving to lubricate 
the skin, and which, on any irritation, is se- 
creted in a more sudden and copious manner 
under the form of a whitish gluten, of a 
slightly acrimonious nature; and from the 
readiness with which the animal, when dis- 
turbed, appears to evacuate it, and that even 
occasionally to some distance, has arisen the 
long-continued popular error of the salaman- 
der’s being enabled to live uninjured in the 
fire, which it has been supposed capable ot 
extinguishing by its natural coldness and 
moisture : the real fact is, that like any of the 
cold and glutinous animals, as snails, & c. it, 
of course, is not quite so instantaneously de- 
stroyed by the force of fire as an animal of a 
drier nature would be. The general length 
of the salamander is about seven or eight 
inches, though it sometimes arrives at a much 
larger size. It is capable of living in water 
as well as on land, and is sometimes found in 
stagnant pools, &c. Its general pace is slow', 
and its manners torpid. 
A strange error appears to have prevailed 
relative to the supposed poisonous nature of 
this-animal ; and the malignity of its venom 
has even been considered as scarcely admit- 
ting a remedy. It may be sufficient to ob- 
serve, that the salamander is perfectly in- 
noxious, and incapable of inflicting either 
wound or poison on any of the larger ani- 
mals, though it appears, from the experi- 
ments of Laurenti, that the common small 
grey lizard (L. agil. var.) is poisoned by bit- 
ing a salamander, and thus swallowing the 
secreted fluid of the skin ; becoming almost 
immediately convulsed, and dying in a very 
short time alterwards. 
The salamander is a viviparous species ; 
producing its young perfectly formed, having 
-been lirst hatched from internal eggs, as in 
the viper, and some other amphibia. It is 
said to retire to the water in order to deposit 
its young, which, at the first exclusion, are 
furnished with ramified branchial fins or pro- 
cesses on each side the neck, and which be- 
ing merely temporary organs, are afterwards 
obliterated, as in the young of frogs and wa- 
ter-newts. Hie number of young produced 
at one birth by the salamander is said some- 
times to amount to 30 or 40. 
17. Lacerta vulgaris. This, which is the 
smallest of the British lizards, is altogether a 
terrestrial species. It is commonly seen in 
gardens, and not unfrequently in the neigh- 
bourhood of dunghills, &c. It also occa- 
sionally makes its way into cellars in the 
manner of the slug, the toad, &c. 
18. Lacerta aquatica. This,, which in Eng- 
land occurs almost in every stagnant wa- 
ter, is a small species. Its general length 
8 
is about three inches and ajialf, and it very 
rarely exceeds that of four inches at most. 
Tne water-newts are remarkable for a high 
degree of reproductive power, and have been 
known to exhibit the restoration of their legs, 
tails, and even, according to Dr. Blumen- 
bach, of the eyes themselves, after having 
been deprived of them by cutting. 
Snake lizards, zvith extremely long bodies 
and short Legs. 
19. Lacerta chalcides. The chalcides is a 
native of many of the warmer parts of Eu- 
rope, as well as of Africa, and is found of dif- 
ferent s'zes, from the length of a few inches to 
that of a foot, or even more. Its general 
length, however, seems to be eight or nine 
inches. The chalcides is an animal of a 
harmless nature, frequenting moist shady 
places, moving rather slowly, and feeding on 
insects, small worms, &c. It is a viviparous 
species, and is said to produce a great many 
young. The serpents to which it bears the 
nearest alliance in point of form, are those 
of the genus anguis, and particularly the A. 
fragilis, or common slow-worm. 
20. Lacerta apus. A still nearer approach 
is made to the snake tribe by this large and 
singular lizard than even by the chalcides. It 
is a native of Greece, the southern parts of 
Siberia, and doubtless of many other parts of 
Europe and Asia, though it seems to have 
been but recently known to naturalists. It is 
found of the length of nearly three feet, and so 
perfectly resembles the general form of a 
large snake, that it is not without a near in- 
spection that it is ascertained to belong to the 
race of lizards ; being furnished merely with 
a pair of very short and somew hat acuminat- 
ed processes by way of feet, situated at a 
vast distance from the fore parts of the body, 
nearly on each side the vent: the processes 
have no divisions or toes, but seem to form 
one simple projection, with a slight indenture 
only. The animal frequents moist and shady 
places, and appears to be of a harmless cha- 
racter. 
LACHNEA, a genus of the monogynia 
order, in the octandria class of plants, and in 
the natural method ranking under the 31st 
order, vepreculx. There is no calyx; the 
corolla is quadrifid, with the limb unequal ; 
there is one seed a little resembling a berry. 
There are tw o species, shrubs of the Cape. 
LACHRYMALIS, fistula. See Sur- 
gery. 
LACHRYMATORY, in antiquity, a ves- 
sel wherein were collected the tears of a de- 
ceased person’s friends, and preserved along 
with the ashes and urn. 
LACIS, a genus of the class and order po- 
lyandria digynia. There is no cal\ x or co- 
rolla. The filaments are winged on both 
sides below ; the receptacle is girt with 12 
spines ; capsules ovate. There is one spe- 
cies, an aquatic of Guiana. 
RACIST IMA, a genus of the monandria 
digynia class and order. The calyx is the 
scale of the ament ; corolla four-parted ; fila- 
ments bifid; berry pedicelled, one-seeded. 
There is one species, a shrub of Jamaica. 
LACK of rupees, is 100,000 rupees; 
which, supposing them standard, or siccas, at 
2s. 6d. amounts to 12,500/. sterling. 
LACQUERS, are varnishes'applied upon 
tin, brass, and other metals, to preserve them 
from tarnishing, and to improve their co- 
