Reptiles and Birds: A Popular Account of Their Various Orders, With a Description of the Habits and Economy of the Most InterestingFiguier, Louis
Science
Reptiles and Birds: A Popular Account of Their Various Orders, With a Description of the Habits and Economy of the Most Interesting
Figuier, Louis
Birds; Reptiles
How often have we admired their magnificent colours in the neighbourhood
of Montpelier, where they rival the green of the meadows, and glitter in
the sun like so many living emeralds!
In the Ocellated Lizard, _L. ocellata_, the upper part of the body is
green, variegated, spotted, and reticulated or ocellated with black,
having large round blue spots upon the flanks; the underpart of the
body is white, frosted with green; in size it is about twenty inches.
They are found at Fontainebleau, in the south of France, and in Spain.
They establish themselves in hard sand, often between two beds of
calcareous rock, upon some steep declivity, more or less directly
exposed to the south; they are also found between the roots of old
stems, either in hedgerows or vineyards. They feed almost exclusively on
insects; but are said to attack Mice, Shrews, Frogs, and even Snakes,
and to destroy the eggs of the Partridge. They have sometimes been tamed
by feeding them on milk.
[In the genus _Ophiops_, two species of which inhabit Asia Minor, and
one of them the shores of the Mediterranean, the eyelid is rudimentary
and the eye exposed, whence the name, signifying "snake eye." So far as
known, the habits of the various Lizards which constitute the family of
_Lacertidæ_ are much the same.
The family of _Teidæ_ is peculiar to the New World, and some of the
species attain to the length of several feet. In these Lizards the head
is pyramidal, and is covered with regular many-sided shields;
supra-orbital plate horny; the teeth solid and well rooted; tongue
elongate, flat, free (rarely slightly sheathed at its base); the scales
of the back are regular and keeled, and of a rhombic shape; sides flat,
and covered with small granular scales; the throat scaly, with a double
collar, rarely indistinct.
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