OF REPTILES. 
327 
to retire into holes or mud, and become torpid. They 
deposit their spawn towards the end of May or beginn- 
ing of June, in small clusters, consisting of several palish 
yellow brown globules included in surrounding gluten. 
While young they are furnished with fins on each side of 
the breast, which fall off when the animals attain a per- 
fect state. 
These animals, like many other reptiles, change their 
skins at certain periods. Which opperation is generally 
performed at the end of every fortnight or three weeks* 
Monitor Lizard. (PL 53.) The monitor, or mon- 
itory lizard, is one of the most beautiful of the whole 
tribe, and is also one of the largest; sometimes meas- 
uring not less than four or five feet from the nose 
to the tip of the tail. Its shape is slender and 
elegant, the head being small, the snout gradually ta- 
pering, the limbs moderately slender, the tail laterally 
compressed, and insensibly decreasing towards the tip, 
which is very slender and sharp. Though the col- 
ours of this lizard are simple, yet such is their dispo- 
sition, that it is impossible to survey their general effect 
without admiration. In this respect, however, the ani- 
mal varies, perhaps, more than most others of its. 
tribe; hence the many varieties quoted, which chiefly 
consist in the distribution of the colours. However, it is 
most commonly black, with the abdomen white; the lat- 
ter colour extending to some distance up the sides, in 
the form of several pointed bands, besides which the 
whole body is generally ornamented by several transverse 
bands consisting of white annular spots, while the head 
is marked with various streaks of the same colour, 
the limbs with very numerous round spots, and the 
tail with broad transverse bands. In others the spots 
forming the lateral bands are simple instead of annular; 
and in others the annulio or white rings are themselves 
composed of small white spots, which are likewise often 
scattered here and there over the black ground colour: 
which in some, instead of being black, is of a deep brown. 
— *Ali, however, agree so far in the general disposi- 
