A LEAPING LIZARD 
been selected to exemplify it. This agamoid is a foot 
or so in length, exclusive of the long and whip-like 
tail. It is of a brownish colour generally but its most 
prominent feature, the frill, more than Elizabethan or 
Jacobeean in size, which encircles the neck, is splashed 
and spotted with vivid red. This fiery and glowing 
fringe seems to lead into an equally glowing mouth 
armed with teeth and with a lurid yellow tongue, the 
sum total of these peculiarities being not unalarming 
to the pursuer. This frill or rather mantle opens in 
an umbrella-like fashion ; the skin of which it is com- 
posed is strengthened by a “rib” derived from the 
hyoid or tongue bones. When not in use it depends 
elegantly over the shoulders. No special action on the 
part of the reptile is needed to expand the frill ; it has 
merely to open its mouth and the very act of opening 
the mouth divaricates the ribs, and expands the mantle. 
This process reminds one of the poison fangs of the 
viper, which are brought into position for biting by 
the mere action of opening the mouth; when the mouth 
is closed the fangs lie in a harmless longitudinal posi- 
tion. As for the frill itself, the most obvious thing to 
compare it to is the hood of the cobras, which with 
it is indeed precisely analogous as far as we can judge. 
It is a “‘scare organ” intended, so at least it is pre- 
sumed, to warn off aggressors by a show of violence, 
which might forbid more effective measures of retaliation 
These methods of indicating rage and determination 
are not uncommon in the animal kindgom ; but at times 
they are not much more than bluff. In the present 
case the reptile can carry out its threats to some 
extent. It not only bites but lashes in a stinging 
fashion with its long and lithe tail, a kind of pugnacity 
also shown by theiguana. There is more, however, that 
is worthy of note in the Chlamydosaurus than this 
mantle, which gives to it its scientific name. Lizards 
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