Geckos are found in almost all hot countries of the Old World, and nearly three hundred different kinds have been found altogether. IGUANAS American lizards are almost wholly members of the numerous iguana family, which takes its name from the big examples found from Mexico down into Brazil. The commonly known one when fully grown will measure four feet from the tip of its blunt, top-shaped head to the end of its long tapering tail. It looks rather forbidding, for a row of sharp spikes runs right along its back, while under its chin is a great dewlap. Yet it is not quite so terrible as it seems, for though it will bite fiercely if it is driven to bay, and use its long tail like the lash of a whip, it will always run away if it can, and will either climb into the topmost boughs of a tree, or plunge into a stream and swim away. This reptile is a very good swimmer, driving itself rapidly through the water by waving its long tail from side to side, just like a crocodile or an alligator. And it can dive beneath the surface and remain at the bottom for a very long time without coming up to breathe. Iguanas live chiefly among the branches of trees which overhang the water. Their flesh is very good to eat, for it is as tender as the breast of a young chicken. Their eggs, too, which they bury in the sand on the river-bank, are often used as food, and it is said that, no matter how long they may be boiled, they never become hard. VARIOUS AMERICAN LIZARDS The hot open plains which stretch from central Texas westward to the Pacific Ocean, and northward in Utah and Nevada, abound in a great variety of small lizards, none more than eighteen inches or so in length. Some are fat and short-tailed, some slender and swift, with tails like whiplashes. Some have gay colors and the power of changing them more or less, while others are dull of hue and uninteresting or repulsive to look at. Mostly they are insect-eaters, but some subsist upon plants; and one of the latter is the big fat one known in southern California as the "alderman." Another strange one is the broad, flat creature so frequently seen all over the Southwest, and called horned toad, on account of its shape and habit of sitting on its squat legs, with its tail tucked sideways out of sight. It is covered almost all over with long and sharp spikes. Those on its head, which are directed backward, are the longest; and from these it gets its name of horned toad. But those on the back are very nearly as long, while there are several rows upon the tail as well. Yet it is perfectly harmless, for even when it is caught for the first time it never seems to use either its spikes or its teeth.