THE HABITS OF LIZARDS 
and condition of the animal itself has also much to do with 
its liveliness. 
Some of the species are of small size, never exceeding 
3 in. or 4 in. in length ; but the larger kinds are said to 
attain from 6 ft. to 7 ft. in length. Their mode of repro- 
duction is various ; many kinds produce the young alive, 
others deposit their eggs in a warm situation, and leave 
them to hatch out and provide for themselves. 
The larger species, such as the monitors of Africa 
and Australia, feed upon animal food, and their swift- 
ness in moving enables them to capture birds as well as 
mammals; they are as active in the trees as on the 
ground, and they devour large numbers of eggs and of 
young birds. 
When one of these lizards finds a nest of eggs the skil- 
ful method it has of taking up an egg in its mouth is 
remarkable. The creature turns its nose upwards, before 
crushing the shell, in order that the contents may fiow 
down its throat ; or should the egg contain a nearly 
hatched young one, the blood and other fluids are swal- 
lowed with the crushed shell and chick ; the long forked 
tongue being thrust far out of the reptile’s mouth, licking 
up on all sides with great relish any particle that may 
have escaped at the sides of its mouth. 
Should a rat or other small mammal fall in its way, 
the monitor at once seizes it, and like a rat-killing dog, 
shakes and knocks it about on the ground until it is 
stunned or killed, and then swallows it whole, some- 
times using its claws to free the sides of the mouth from 
the claws or toes of the victim should they become, as 
they sometimes do, flxed in that part. The power in the 
jaws exerted by these animals is incredible, when crush- 
ing the ribs and other bones of the animals upon which 
they feed, and the determined manner with which they 
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