A history of British reptiles / By Thomas Bell.

  • Thomas Bell
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British reptiles / By Thomas Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which appears not to be susceptible of any such attach- ment. It will indeed attempt to bite any one who handles it, which I have never known to occur with the L. mridis. When in confinement, it ceases to feed, conceals itself with extreme timidity when approached, and ultimately pines and dies. The female lays her eggs, to the number of twelve or fourteen, in hollows in the sand, which she excavates for the purpose, and having covered them carefully with sand, she leaves them to be hatched by the solar heat. It is probable that the eggs are laid a considerable time before they are hatched, as I have found the female containing numerous eggs of the full size, and apparently ready to be deposited, and yet without the vestige of an embryo within any of them: there is, therefore, every reason to conclude that this species never brings forth her young alive, as is always the case with the common Lizard. It is a northern species, rarely occurring so far south as Italy, but sufficiently common in the northern parts of France and the middle districts of the European Continent, and extending, as we have seen, as far north as Sweden and Denmark. It varies exceedingly, like most others of the Lacertine group, in colour and marking. The most common colour of the upper parts is a sandy brown, with obscure longi- tudinal fasciae of a darker brown, and a lateral series of black rounded spots, each marked with a yellowish-white dot or line in the centre. There is often in this most common variety more or less of green on the sides. The following figure is of a very beautiful individual in my col- lection, which was taken in the neighbourhood of Poole by my relative. Dr. Bell Salter, of Hyde: it is of a rich brown colour above, with a rather lighter fascia on each side near
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