. Half hours with fishes, reptiles, and birds . skink (Fig. 74), which are short and of little service. On the other hand, the geckos (Fig. 75) have toes provided with adhesive plates by which they cling to walls, having a seemingly marvelous faculty of running along overhead. This is true of many lizards, nearly all having delicate plates or disks which act fig. gecko. like suckers, some exuding a sticky secretion by which they readily run along, even on the polished surface of glass. The foot of the chameleon (Fig. 76) is adapted to clasping,and resembles some mechanical contrivance.
. Half hours with fishes, reptiles, and birds . skink (Fig. 74), which are short and of little service. On the other hand, the geckos (Fig. 75) have toes provided with adhesive plates by which they cling to walls, having a seemingly marvelous faculty of running along overhead. This is true of many lizards, nearly all having delicate plates or disks which act fig. gecko. like suckers, some exuding a sticky secretion by which they readily run along, even on the polished surface of glass. The foot of the chameleon (Fig. 76) is adapted to clasping,and resembles some mechanical contrivance. Indeed, theentire animal has little or no appearance of life. Clingingto the limbs, its staring, unmovable eyes looking into space,. Fig. 76. — Tongue of Chameleon. it seems to be a weird caricature of an animal, butsuddenly out of its mouth shoots an extraordinary object,almost as long as the chameleon, — its tongue, — whichstrikes and secures its prey with absolute surety. An interesting mimic, though not in the sense of rapidlychanging its color, is the so-called horned toad, which isreally a lizard. The animal is seen in Figure 77 as one no THE LIZARDS usually observes it from above, a curious flat object seem-ingly covered with spines, those on the head being par-ticularly long. The lizard is brown, yellow, and white incolor, adapting itself to the tint of its touched it flattens out, and is not a pleasing object,yet it is perfectly harmless. The spines are not used, andthe little lizard makes an interesting pet, if the term canbe applied to mere possession. I have experimented with them in the mannerdescribed at the beginningof this chapter, placing themin different compartments,where
Size: 2889px × 865px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1906
