A JEIOIOS Ia, ILIV eu) 
if the lizard be forcibly abducted from the ant-hill the 
ants will leave in chagrin and found another colony. 
In the south of Europe lives Blanus, an ally of Ampius- 
bena which prefers manure heaps, where it finds and 
eats earthworms, to ant-hills. 
That so many different families of lizards should show 
an equal capacity for more or less completely losing 
their limbs makes the transition between a snake and 
a lizard easy to imagine; and also shows us that 
the snake may be a quite composite group perhaps 
derived from different groups of lizards. 
THE TOKAY GECKO 
This, the great house gecko of the East, is commonly 
on view at the Zoo, where it may be recognized and 
distinguished from other geckos by its large size, measur- 
ing as it does a foot or more in length, and by its marked 
and not unpleasant coloration; this coloration con- 
sists of red spots and marks upon a greyish green 
ground. Geckos as a rule are not big lizards, indeed 
their capacity for running up vertical walls, and even 
crossing ceilings suspended head downwards, would 
seem to forbid a great bulk ; even as it is their attitude 
seems to show a striking variance from the laws of 
gravitation. They stick, however, by a _ peculiar 
mechanism quite analogous to that by which a piece of 
glass may be made to adhere to another piece of glass 
by simple pressure. The toes of the gecko are covered 
with fine folds lying in parallel rows ; these when firmly 
pressed down upon a smooth surface drive out the under- 
lying air, and as a consequence atmospheric pressure 
assists the foothold of the lizard. This mechanism, 
so essential to the house-loving ways of the gecko, 
isnot, however, peculiar to these lizards ; other lizards, 
such as species of the genus Anolis, allied to the Iguana, 
‘whose peculiarities have been treated of on another page, 
239 
