Fig. 145.–Trachysaurus rugosus. × ⅓.

Cyclodus s. Tiliqua, of Australia, Tasmania, and the Malay Islands, has stout
lateral teeth with spherical crowns. The imbricating, cycloid scales of the body
and the rather short but pointed tail are quite smooth and shiny. C. gigas, of New
Guinea and the Moluccas, reaches a length of nearly 2 feet. The general colour is
brownish yellow, with broad, dark bands across the body and tail.

Scincus, of North Africa, Arabia, Persia, and Sindh, has pentadactyle limbs, with
laterally serrated digits. The eyelids are well developed, but the ear is hidden
under scaly flaps. S. officinalis, of the Sahara and of Egypt, grows to about 8
inches in length. The snout is peculiarly shaped, cuneiform. The eyes are very
small. The scales of the body are perfectly smooth; the sides of the belly are
somewhat angular. The {562}whole shape of the creature, the scales, and the digits
are adapted to burrowing and moving quickly through the loose sand. The general
colour is yellowish or brownish above, each scale with small brown and whitish
spots; the under parts are uniform whitish. The young are quite beautiful, being
uniform pale salmon-coloured above, silvery white below. When a little older,
yellow spots appear on the flanks and grey bands across the back. These Skinks live
in the absolutely dry reddish-yellow sand of the desert, in which they may almost
be said to swim about, so swift and easy are their movements. They live on insects,
while in their turn they are eaten by snakes, and above all by the Varanus lizards.
fig146

Fig. 146.–Cyclodus gigas. × ¼.

Of Mabuia with about forty species, in the whole of Africa, Southern Asia, and in
Tropical America, we mention only M. (Euprepes) vittata, on account of its partly
semi-aquatic life, a very rare condition among Scincidae. This creature, about 7
inches long when full grown, frequents damp localities in Tunis and Algeria, where
the French call it "Poisson de sable." It often sits on the floating leaves of
Nymphaea alba, and dives into the water in order to escape. Its proper element is,
however, the sand, and for the night it retires under stones. The general colour is
olive brown with a lighter vertebral band and two narrow whitish lines on each
side, sometimes edged with black. The under parts are yellowish or greenish white.

Chalcides s. Seps s. Gongylus, of the Mediterranean countries {563}also occurs in

South-Western Asia. The lower eyelid has a transparent disc. The body is much
elongated, and is covered with smooth shiny scales. The limbs are very short, or
reduced to mere vestiges.

Ch. ocellatus, of the Southern Mediterranean countries, occurring also in Malta and
Sardinia, reaches about 10 inches in length. The snout is conical, the ear-opening
a small slit or hole. The limbs have five fingers and toes. The under parts are
uniform silvery white, but the colour of the upper parts is very variable, mostly
olive brown with black spots and irregular cross-bars, or with dark and light
spots; sometimes uniform bronzy brown with a light upper and a black lateral band.
This Skink seems to have no fixed abode, but digs itself into the sand wherever it
wants to hide. The skin is not shed in flakes, but, as in most Skinks, it peels off
by a process of gradual desquamation. Fischer's specimens paired towards the end of
December. The gestation lasted 56 days, when nine young were born, which measured
about 75 mm. or 3 inches; when three weeks old they had increased to nearly double
this length.

Ch. lineatus, of Spain and Portugal, and of the South of France, like Ch.
tridactylus of Italy and North-West Africa, has only three fingers and toes. The
fore-limbs are only about one quarter of an inch in length in large specimens of 10
inches total length; the hind-limbs are a little longer. The general colour is
bronzy olive or brown above, in the former species with nine or eleven darker
longitudinal streaks; uniform, and with an even number of streaks in the latter
species. Ch. bedriagae, of Spain and Portugal, has mostly five fingers and toes,
and the limbs are relatively longer in this smaller species; but it is a question
if these and other species of this genus are not to a great extent simply
individual variations, since the reduction of the limbs and toes seems to be a very
recent feature. Ch. guentheri, of Palestine, otherwise in every respect like Ch.
tridactylus, but reaching a length of more than 14 inches, has the limbs reduced to
tiny conical stumps without a trace of separate digits.

I have caught Seps accidentally under stones or pieces of bark in sandy districts.
On the western coast of Galicia and Portugal, close to the sea, they frequent the
gorse-bushes, on which they can be seen basking, provided they are approached
{564}stealthily. They disappear on the slightest alarm, almost swimming, as it
were, with great agility through the prickly cover, and then hiding and wriggling
through the loose sand between the roots.

The following five "families" are composed of degraded forms of various descent.
Most of them lead a burrowing, subterranean life, in adaptation to which the body
has become snake-shaped or worm-like. The fore-limbs are entirely absent, except in
Chirotes; the hind-limbs are absent, or reduced to small flaps; the girdles are
reduced correspondingly. The skull is devoid of postorbital, postfronto-squamosal,
supratemporal, and jugal arches. The quadrate bone is mostly immovable. The eyes
and ears are concealed, except in the Pygopodidae.

Fam. 14. Anelytropidae.–An artificial assembly of a few degraded Scincoids. The

worm-shaped, limbless body is devoid of osteoderms. The tongue is short, slightly
nicked anteriorly, and covered with imbricating papillae. Columellae cranii are
present. Anelytropsis papillosus in Mexico. Typhlosaurus and Feylinia in South and
West Africa.

Fam. 15. Dibamidae, consisting of the genus Dibamus, with D. novae-guineae, in New
Guinea, the Moluccas, Celebes, and the Nicobar Islands. The tongue is arrow-shaped,
undivided in front, covered with curved papillae. Columellae cranii are absent. The
vermiform body is covered with cycloid imbricating scales without osteoderms. The
limbs and even their arches are absent, but in the males the hind-limbs are
represented by a pair of flaps. Total length of the animal about 6 inches.

Fam. 16. Aniellidae.–The genus Aniella comprises a few small worm- or snake-shaped
species in California, which seem to be degraded forms of Anguidae. The eyes and
ears are concealed, limbs are entirely absent, the body and tail are covered with
soft, imbricating, more or less hexagonal scales. The tongue is villose, smooth,
and bifid anteriorly. The teeth are relatively large, few in numbers, recurved,
with short swollen bases. The skull, by reduction, approaches the Ophidian type;
there is no columella cranii, the postorbital arch is ligamentous, the premaxillary
is single, the nasals and frontals remain separate, the pre- and post-orbitals are
in contact with each other, excluding the frontal from the orbit.

A. pulchra.–Silvery, the scales edged with brown; back and {565}tail with a narrow,
brown, median line. Total length, 7 to 8 inches.

Fam. 17. Amphisbaenidae.–Worm-shaped lizards with the soft skin forming numerous
rings, each of which is divided into many little squares, the vestiges of scales
which are otherwise restricted to the head. The eyes and ears are concealed. Limbs
are absent except in Chirotes, which has short four-clawed fore-limbs. The pectoral
arch, and still more so the pelvic arch, are reduced to minute vestiges. The tail
is very short. The skull is small, compact, and strongly ossified, in adaptation to
the burrowing life, and is devoid of postorbital and postfronto-squamosal arches
and of columellae. The teeth are either acrodont or pleurodont. The tongue is
slightly elongated, covered with scale-like papillae, and bifurcates into two long
and narrow smooth points.
fig147

Fig. 147.–Map showing the distribution of Amphisbaenidae.

The Amphisbaenas lead an entirely subterranean, burrowing life, like earth-worms.

They are frequently found in ants' nests or in manure-heaps. Their progression is
very worm-like, their annulated soft skin enabling them to make almost peristaltic
motions and to move backwards as well as forwards. They crawl in a straight line,
with slight vertical waves, not, like other limbless lizards or snakes, by lateral
undulations. The food consists of worms and small insects. About one dozen genera
with more than sixty species are known, most of which inhabit the warmer parts of
America, the West Indies, and Africa. Four inhabit Mediterranean countries.
{566}of those genera which live and dig in the sand, have a transparent disc in the
middle of the lower eyelid, so that they can see while the eye itself is protected.
This is for instance the case in some specimens of the Indian and African Eremias.
In the Indian genus Cabrita the transparent disc is very large, and in Ophiops,
which inhabits sandy stretches from North Africa to India, the lower eyelid is
fused with the rim of the much-reduced upper lid, and forms a large transparent
window.

The Lacertidae or True Lizards comprise nearly twenty genera, with about one
hundred species, and are typical of the Old World, being found in Europe, Asia, and
Africa, but not in Madagascar nor in the Australian region. They are most abundant
in Africa. Their northern limit coincides fairly closely with the limit of the
permanently frozen under-ground. This is indicated in the map (Fig. 143) by the
dotted line. All the Lacertidae live upon animal food, chiefly insects, and after
them worms and snails; but the larger lizards take what they can master, frequently
other lizards, and even younger members of their own kind. Many of them love sugar,
which they lick, and all require water. They are all terrestrial, preferring,
according to their kind, such localities as yield them their particular food.
{552}
fig143

Fig. 143.–Map showing