swimming out at sea, absolutely prove its aquatic habits; yet there is
in this respect one strange anomaly, namely, that when frightened it
will not enter the water. Hence it is easy to drive these lizards down
to any little point overhanging the sea, where they will sooner allow a
person to catch hold of their tails than jump into the water. They do
not seem to have any notion of biting; but when much frightened they
squirt a drop of fluid from each nostril. I threw one several times as
far as I could, into a deep pool left by the retiring tide; but it
invariably returned in a direct line to the spot where I stood. It
swam near the bottom, with a very graceful and rapid movement, and
occasionally aided itself over the uneven ground with its feet. As
soon as it arrived near the edge, but still being under water, it tried
to conceal itself in the tufts of sea-weed, or it entered some crevice.
As soon as it thought the danger was past, it crawled out on the dry
rocks, and shuffled away as quickly as it could. I several times
caught this same lizard, by driving it down to a point, and though
possessed of such perfect powers of diving and swimming, nothing would
induce it to enter the water; and as often as I threw it in, it
returned in the manner above described. Perhaps this singular piece of
apparent stupidity may be accounted for by the circumstance, that this
reptile has no enemy whatever on shore, whereas at sea it must often
fall a prey to the numerous sharks. Hence, probably, urged by a fixed
and hereditary instinct that the shore is its place of safety, whatever
the emergency may be, it there takes refuge.
During our visit (in October), I saw extremely few small individuals of
this species, and none I should think under a year old. From this
circumstance it seems probable that the breeding season had not then
commenced. I asked several of the inhabitants if they knew where it
laid its eggs: they said that they knew nothing of its propagation,
although well acquainted with the eggs of the land kind--a fact,
considering how very common this lizard is, not a little extraordinary.
We will now turn to the terrestrial species (A. Demarlii), with a round
tail, and toes without webs. This lizard, instead of being found like
the other on all the islands, is confined to the central part of the
archipelago, namely to Albemarle, James, Barrington, and Indefatigable
islands. To the southward, in Charles, Hood, and Chatham islands, and
to the northward, in Towers, Bindloes, and Abingdon, I neither saw nor
heard of any. It would appear as if it had been created in the centre
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