964 Mlarvels of the Universe 
EVOLUTION OF THE HORSE’S HOOF. 
The earliest known ancestor of the Horse 
had five toes. These were gradually reduced to 
three, later to one—the present day hoof. 
MONITORS, OR] GIANT WIZARDS 
BY R. LYDEKKER. 
THE claim of the Old World lizards, commonly known as 
, 
“ Monitors,” to a place among marvellous animals is based 
on the fact that they are by far the largest members of 
their order, one Indo-Malay species attaining a length of 
about eight feet, and weighing so much as _ sixty 
pounds. Even this monster is, however, a pigmy com- 
pared to an extinct Queensland species, which probably 
measured some forty or fifty feet in length, and was 
therefore about double the size of the biggest living 
crocodile. 
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The origin of the name “ Monitor”’ is not a little curious. 
The Egyptian representative of the group is known, in 
common with other lizards, by the Arabic name of wara.:, 
or ouvan ; and by some unusually clever person this has 
been identified—although, of course, incorrectly—with the 
German Wari.er, signifying a warner. From this it was 
but a step to substitute the equivalent Latin term monitor 
—a warner! In spite of the absurdity of its origin, the 
name is, however, a convenient and distinctive designation 
for these great lizards. 
Monitors are represented by rather less than thirty 
species, ranging over Africa, Arabia, India, the Malay 
countries, and Australia; the two species represented in 
the accompanying illustrations—namely, Gould’s Monitor 
and the Variable Monitor—being natives of the last-named 
country. 
. In general appearance Monitors are very like overgrown 
ordinary lizards; but they are specially characterized by 
tl.e unusual elongation of the neck, and the great length 
of the deeply-cleft tongue, which, when these lizards are 
active, is kept in constant motion, being alternately 
protruded and withdrawn with lightning-lke rapidity in 
the same manner as that of a snake. In the matter of 
diet Monitors are carnivorous, consuming lizards and 
snakes smaller than themselves, as well as small mammals 
and birds. A particularly favourite bonne bouche is a 
clutch of birds’ eggs or callow young. In devouring eggs, 
eich one is swallowed whole; and in captivity the large 
Indo-Malay Monitor will think nothing of devouring eight 
or ten hens’ eggs at a meal, which are swallowed in such 
rapid succession that they may be heard clicking against 
one another as they glide down the creature’s capacious 
gullet. 
In all cases the tail is of great length and flexibility, 
but whereas, in the species inhabiting dry and sandy 
districts it is whip-like in shape, in those frequenting 
