Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/412

396 I made a cage for the lizards of iron wire, open above, and, having a large room in my country house into which the sun shone all day on three sides, I put them in it. Pierre soon learned to leave his cage, to climb up to the windows by some rags I had hung to them, and passed from one to another, following the sun. In the evening he returned to the cage. Pedro, more stupid, tried vainly to get out of his prison, and, when I put him on the ledge of a window in the sun, let himself be overtaken by the shade, persisted for hours in efforts to get through the glass, and finally went to sleep where he had been left. Pierre, always in motion and investigating, discovered an old mattress in the room that had a hole in the cover, and took a liking to the hole. The mattress was put where it could not be reached except over a bridge of cords connecting it with the cage. Pierre, always expert, learned very soon to pass over this bridge to his hiding place. Pedro never could understand what the cords were good for, and his love of comfort never carried him to the point of finding the luxurious mattress. More recently Pierre, when at Liége, found a hole in the lining of a thick portière curtain, of which he became acquainted with the most minute folds and turns, and when he is there there is no means of getting him away.

The physiognomies of the two correspond with their characters. Pierre's eye is black, mild, intelligent, and scrutinizing. In Pedro's, the pupil, surrounded with a golden yellow circle, reflects distrust, hostility, and ferocity. It took six months to tame Pedro, and it was quite two years before he ceased to show his fierce temper when I came upon him too abruptly.

Pierre and Pedro lived on the best of terms with one another. At Liége they slept side by side, often interlocked. Pedro was fond of following Pierre in his wanderings and escapades. One day Pierre was lost. He had got out of my desk, had gone down several steps of the stairway, and had slipped in under the carpet, where he was casually found about three weeks afterward. During the whole time of his disappearance Pedro refused all food, and had no relish for insects and earthworms, till Pierre was restored to him. Seeing him so melancholy, I made an appeal to all my friends in the south of France to get me a new companion for him. M. H. Dineur, an engineer of Prades, sent me a lizard, October 1, 1891, three months after Pierre had been found. From that day on a great change was noticed. I had not learned the sex of my animals, but I observed now that they were both males, while the new one was a female. Pedro conceived a great antipathy for Pierre, which became more evident every day. Between the pursuits and bitings he suffered from Pedro, Pierre led a martyr's life till I was obliged to make a separate cage for him, and when Pierre was let out for an airing Pedro had to be shut up.