The skinks are earth-burrowing lizards, not prettily shaped but handsomely colored, and especially noted for wearing vivid shades of blue, a tint unusual in reptiles. The ancients had myths about the skink as well as about the poor basilisk. They said it poisoned cattle, and was ever on the alert to do harm to man or beast. The fact is the skink is alert only for slugs, insects, and worms which it eats. Nearly all lizards are insect-eaters, though in captivity they will eat cake and bread. LESSON XXXVII. THE ANCIENT MONSTER. “The various terrors of that horrid shore,-- Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day; Those matted woods, where birds forget to sing, And silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those poisonous fields, rich with luxuriance crowned Where the dark scorpion gathers death around.” --GOLDSMITH. The word reptile seems to be in such bad repute, and to raise such disagreeable associations in the minds of many people, that in introducing a few specimens of the class reptilia we began, not by describing the characteristics of the class, but by introducing some of its most pleasing members--the lizards. Let us now turn for a little to the distinguishing features of the class, and then to the animal which is its leading representative. The class reptilia stands next to the class batrachia. Reptiles are cold-blooded, vertebrate animals, which breathe by the means of lungs. The form of the body is generally like that of the batrachians, between which and the birds, the reptiles find their place in nature. Thus the horned toad and the “horrid Moloch” are lizards,--reptiles which look very much more like toads than like their reptile brethren,--while the “frilled lizard” and the “flying dragon,” gayly colored tree-dwellers, are more suggestive of birds than of some other lizards. The body of most reptiles performs the chief part in locomotion, moving with an undulatory action from side to side. The spinal column is therefore strong and stiff, and the tail is long, while the head and shoulders are comparatively small and narrow. Some of the reptiles, as the serpent tribe, have no feet, but the tortoise family have well-developed feet, and move by means of them, and not by serpentine undulations of the body. Most of the reptiles are voracious feeders, and are well provided with teeth. The skull is always depressed, with a small cavity for the brain, and the standard of reptilian intelligence is comparatively low.