While still marvelling over these South African egg-suckers, I watched some lizards with a broken egg in their cage. Their tongues were long, thin, blade-like, and bifid, much better adapted for the purpose of lapping than that of a snake, yet stupidly slow and inefficient was this ribbon-like tongue. The lizards threw it out, spatula-fashion, into the midst of the pool of egg which was spreading itself over the floor, and caught whatever of the fluid adhered to it. Had the lizards possessed lips adapted for such a purpose, and, in addition, intelligence enough to ‘suck,’ they might have drawn some of the cohesive mass into their throats, but they only obeyed their instinctive habit of lapping. Snakes would do the same. Their habit is to moisten the tongue in lapping; and I fear we must not place too much credence in the exceptional intelligence of that South African egg-sucker, but rather regret the loose account which conveys so erroneous an impression. I watched those lizards for many minutes, and decided that the egg would be dried up long before it could be consumed by lizard-lapping. The tongue of a snake is undoubtedly an important and highly-developed organ. That its sensitiveness assists the smell, we have reason to believe, and possibly it possesses other faculties of which we are at present ignorant. In the case of an unbroken egg, for instance, the tongue has told the snake that there is something good inside it; and instinct immediately leads the reptile to get the awkward mouthful between its jaws, which expand just so far as to retain it safely, yet just so lightly that not one of those rows of long, sharp teeth shall penetrate the shell or fracture it in the slightest degree. How delicate must be the adjustment whereby those six jaws, all bristling with fine, needle-like teeth, grasp and yet not break the delicate shell! for, after all, an egg _is_ a fragile substance in proportion to the size of the feeder and its muscular power. Snakes have been known to get choked in attempting to swallow an egg, as they have also come to grief with other impediments, such as horns of cattle; but this we must attribute to their not being able to estimate their own swallowing capacities, or to some other untoward event.