Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/756

 732 L I Z L I Z stimulus supplied by the absorbing interest of the par ticular events he is describing, or the absence of any authority so full and so little to be disregarded as to fetter his freedom. Certain it is that in his accounts of the kingly period, and of the Hannibalic war, he is seen to much better advantage than in the fourth and fifth decades. We may naturally suppose too that his energies flagged as the work progressed ; and in the extant fragments of the ninety-first book other critics besides Niebuhr have detected the signs of failing strength. In style and language Livy represents the best period of Latin prose writing. He has passed far beyond the bald and meagre diction of the early chroniclers. In his hands j Latin acquired a flexibility and a richness of vocabulary | unknown to it before. If he writes with less finish and a less perfect rhythm than his favourite model Cicero, he I excels him in the varied structure of his periods, and their adaptation to the subject-matter. It is true that here and there the &quot; creamy richness &quot; of his style becomes ver bosity, and that he occasionally draws too freely on his inexhaustible store of epithets, metaphors, and turns of speech ; but these faults, which did not escape the censure even of friendly critics like Quintilian, are comparatively rare in the extant parts of his work. From the tendency to use a poetic diction in prose, which was so conspicuous a fault in the writers of the silver age, Livy is not wholly free. In his earlier books especially there are numerous phrases and sentences which have an unmistakably poetic ring, recalling sometimes Ennius and more often his con temporary Virgil (see for instance Teuffel, p. 482, n. 14). But in Livy this poetic element is kept within bounds, and serves only to give warmth and vividness to the narrative. Similarly, though the influence of rhetoric upon his language, as well as upon his general treatment, is clearly perceptible, he has not the perverted love of antithesis, paradox, and laboured word-painting which offends us in Tacitus; and, in spite of the Venetian richness of his colouring, and the copious flow of his words, he is on the whole wonderfully natural and simple. These merits, not less than the high tone and easy grace of his narrative and the eloquence of his speeches, gave Livy a hold on Roman readers such as only Cicero and Virgil besides him ever obtained. His history formed the groundwork of nearly all that was afterwards written on the subject. Plutarch, writers on rhetoric like the elder Seneca, moralists like Valerius Maximus, went to Livy for their stock examples. Florus and Eutropius abridged him ; Orosius extracted from him his proofs of the sinful blind ness of the pagan world ; and in every school Livy was firmly established as a text-book for the Roman youth. By far the most complete account of the various editions of Livy, ! and of all that has been written upon him, will be found in Emil j Hiibner s Grundriss eu Vorlesungcn ilbcr die Edmischc Literatur- goschichte, 4th ed., Berlin, 1878. The most successful translation of his history is that by Philemon Holland, London, 1600. (H. F. P. ) LIZARD. The name Lizard (Lat., lacerta) originally j referred only to the small European species of four-legged i reptiles, but is now applied to a whole order (Lacertilia) which is represented by extremely numerous species in all temperate and tropical parts of the globe. Lizards may be described as reptiles with a more or less elongate body terminating in a tail, and with the skin either folded into scales (as in snakes) or granular or tubercular ; legs are generally present usually four, rarely two in number but sometimes they are reduced to rudiments or entirely hidden below the skin ; the jaws arc toothed, and the two mandibles firmly united in front by an osseous suture. Eyelids are generally present. The vent is a transverse slit, and not longitudinal as in Crocodilians. Other struc tural characteristics, especially of the skeleton, separate lizards from the other orders of reptiles ; but will be better understood if described in relation to the other members of that class. See REPTILES. At a low estimate the number of described species of lizards may be given as about one thousand seven hundred. 1 They are extremely scarce north of 60 N. lat. ; and in the southern hemisphere the southern point of Patagonia forms the furthest limit of their range. As we approach the tropics, the variety of forms and the number of individuals increase steadily, the most specialized and the most developed forms (the monitors and leguans) being restricted to the tropical regions where lizards abound. They have adapted themselves to almost every physical condition, except the extreme cold of high latitudes or altitudes. Those inhabiting temperate latitudes hibernate. The majority live on broken ground, rocks with or without vegetation ; others are arboreal ; to a few (certain monitors) the neighbourhood of water is a necessity; whilst others are true desert animals, in colour scarcely distinguishable from their surroundings. Some, like many geckos, live near or in houses, being enabled by a peculiar apparatus of their toes to run along perpendicular and even overhanging surfaces. No lizard enters the sea, with the exception of one species, the leguan of the Galapagos (AmUyrhynchus), which feeds on sea-weed. Some, like the majority of the geckos, are nocturnal. The motions of most lizards are executed with great but not enduring rapidity. With the exception of the chamse- leon, all drag their body over the ground, the limbs being wide apart, turned outwards, and relatively to the bulk of the body generally weak. But the limbs show with regard to development great variation, and an uninterrupted transition from the most perfect condition of two pairs with five separate clawed toes to their total disappearance; yet even limbless lizards retain rudiments of the osseous framework below the skin. The motions of these limb less lizards are very similar to those of snakes, which they resemble in their elongate body passing into a long cylindrical and tapering tail. In a great many lizards (Lacertidse, skinks, geckos) the muscles of the several vertebral segments of the tail are so loosely connected, and the axis of the vertebra is so weak, that the tail breaks off with the greatest facility. The part severed retains its muscular irritability for a short time, wriggling as if it were a living creature. A lizard thus mutilated does not seem to be much affected by its loss, and in a short time the part is reproduced ; but, whilst the muscles and also the integuments may be perfectly regenerated, the osseous part always remains replaced by a cartilaginous rod, without vertebral segmentation. This faculty is of great advantage to the lizards endowed with it ; they are either species in which the tail has no special function, such as to assist in a particular kind of locomotion or to serve as a weapon of defence, or they are small species which lack other means of escape from their numerous enemies. The geckos are even able to throw off their tail spontaneously, and are said to do this frequently when pursued by some other animal, which is satisfied with capturing the wriggling member, whilst the owner saves its life by a rapid flight. The majority of lizards are carnivorous, the larger feed ing on small mammals, birds, fishes, and eggs, the smaller on insects, worms, and other invertebrates. Not a few, however, are herbivorous, as the larger leguans, and many agamas. This difference in diet is quite independent of modifications of dentition. Generally the teeth are simply 1 The two latest general works on lizards are those by Dumml and Bibron (Erp&tologie generate, with atlas, torn, i.-ix., Paris, 1834-54, Svo), and by J. E. Gray (Catalogue of Lizards in the Collection of the British Museum, London, 1845, Svo). Both are now antiquated, and a new edition of either is much required.