AN AMERICAN LIZARD 
same idea has fixed itself to quite another kind of lizard, 
inhabiting South America. This lizard, formerly placed 
in the near neighbourhood of the monitor, is known as 
the Teguexin, and is referred to on another page. Both 
ilzards have got the reputation, apparently entirely unde- 
served, of being a friend to the human race, by giving 
notice of a prowling alligator. It would be interesting 
to know whether the idea was conveyed to the natives 
of South America by white men acquainted with the 
Old World monitor and its reputation, or whether it is 
part of an original stock of legends carried from the east 
to the west or vice versa by migrating tribes, who colon- 
ized the one half of the world from the other. 
THE IGUANA LIZARD 
The whole family of lizards to which Iguana belongs 
are, with a very few exceptions, American in range, and 
they are for the far greater part denizens of the central 
and southern parts of that continent, and of the adjacent 
West Indies, which, zoologically considered, are’ part of 
America. The family is a very large one ; but the genus 
Iguana itself, which has given the name to the family, is 
a very small one, and, indeed, consists of at most three 
different species. The one most familiar to those visit- . 
ing the Zoo is undoubtedly Iguana tuberculata, which is 
green in colour, diversified with brown in part, and has 
an extremely long and, at the end, thin tail. Along the 
head are a series of tooth-like crests, and under the chin 
hangs a dewlap like that of an Indian zebu. The iguana 
lives in trees ; and this habit of living at some altitude 
seems to beget thoughtfulness, which takes the form in 
our specimens at the Zoo of extreme immobility. For 
hours—perhaps if we were there to see we should find it 
to be days—the iguana sits and does nothing. It isa 
lizard that has, for a lizard, the uncommon habit of being 
vegetarian. There are others which share this mode 
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