Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/132

124 scenes as the flowers and the birds. Thus Byron says,—

And Moore, whose poetry so faithfully reflects the beautiful in nature, speaks of

The distinctive characters of this genus are the following. The throat is furnished with a distinct collar; the nostrils are placed near the outer and lower margin of the nasal plates; there is a bony plate over the orbits; the temples are covered not with plates, but with close-pressed scales; the scales of the back are lengthened and six-sided; the palate is destitute of teeth; the femoral pores are small and round, so as almost to form tubes. The young are produced alive; the membrane of the egg, answering to the shell, being ruptured either immediately before, or in the moment of, birth.

The most common of our native Lizards is of this genus, the Nimble or Viviparous Lizard (Zootoca vivipara, .), whose history Professor Bell thus pleasingly records:—

"This agile and pretty little creature is the common inhabitant of almost all our heaths and banks in most of the districts of England, and extending even into Scotland: it is also one of