The Cuban anolis is one of a large family of lizards, all of which are confined to America and the West Indian islands. This family is nearly related to that of the iguanas; but whereas some of the iguanas attain a length of five or six feet, the anolis is always small. It is a remarkably active little creature, and often singularly beautiful, offering a striking contrast to the ugly and sluggish horned lizards of North America and Mexico. It is usually rather more than a foot long, and its general colour is a beautiful green. It has a white throat, and a white band passing over each shoulder and for some distance along each side. The little creature has the power of puffing out its throat, and distending it till it looks like a ball upon its neck. When it is irritated, angry, or alarmed, it invariably blows out its throat in this way, and tries to frighten its enemy by this means. Most of these lizards have also more or less power of changing their colour, like the chameleon, and, indeed, a few of them can out-rival the chameleon in this respect.

A striking peculiarity of this lizard is the structure of its toes. They are rather long, and furnished with sharp hooked claws, and the last joint is swollen out into a kind of pad. At first sight we should be inclined to think that these little swellings near the tips of the toes would be rather an inconvenience to the anolis, by impeding its movements. But a closer examination shows that these curious growths have a use. They act to some extent as suckers, and enable the anolis to climb the perpendicular faces of rocks, or even to hang from the under side of a branch.

The males of these little lizards are often very quarrelsome, especially at certain times of the year, when two of them rarely meet without having a fight. They fly at each other furiously, rolling over and over, and biting savagely. These fierce battles generally end in one of the combatants losing his tail, for in these lizards, as in many others, the tail is not very strongly attached to the body. The victor sometimes makes off with the tail of his foe in his mouth, and sometimes he even devours it. The loss of his tail is a great blow to the vanquished anolis, for he seems to have a great pride in it. When he is deprived of it, he accepts defeat at once, and though he recovers from the injury without much trouble, he is generally but a timid and crest-fallen creature afterwards. He seems to look upon the loss of his tail as a disgrace—very much, perhaps, as a regiment of soldiers regards the loss of its colours.

Another pretty little Cuban lizard is the chameleon-eyed lizard. It is of a brownish colour spotted with white, especially about the head. It has many resemblances to the anolis just described, being small, slender, and active. Both frequent trees, thickets, and rocky places, where they run and climb with such quickness as to be sometimes easily mistaken for birds hopping to and fro. The numerous tropical insects are their usual food, varied occasionally by berries and fruits.

W. A. Atkinson.