Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/329

Rh In the afternoon I walked to the eastern extremity of the island, which part is more open than elsewhere, with extensive stretches of almost bare limestone rock. Water appears to stand here in places during the rainy season, as I found a good many empty shells of a species of Succinea (scalarina, Pfeiff.), as well as some very young living specimens adhering to the under side of large stones. I was very much pleased to find here the remarkable Scincoid Lizard, Egernia (Silubosaurus) stokesii, Gray, discovered by Capt. Stokes on Rat Island in the southern part of the group ('Discoveries in Australia,' vol. ii. p. 145), and exceedingly well figured in the Appendix to that valuable work. The first specimens were obtained by raising a large flat block of limestone, under which several were snugly stowed away; these were secured without the least trouble, as for a Lizard it is the most sluggish and stupid creature imaginable. It is, however, able to give a pretty severe bite, and holds on to any object which it has seized with its jaws with the tenacity of a bull-dog. The largest examples attain a length of nine or ten inches; it is of a rather stout and clumsy build, with short legs, and is covered with rather shining keeled scales, which on the tail assume the character of short spines. In colour it is a rich and peculiar blackish olive, thickly mottled with pale yellow spots, which are confluent on the under parts. The habits of this Lizard appear to be somewhat predatory, and in all probability it is of this species that Mr. Gould's collector, Gilbert, speaks in his very interesting notes on the breeding of the Terns, &c, in the Southern Abrolhos ('Handbook, Birds of Australia,' ii. pp. 414, 415). He writes as follows:—"By the middle of January the eggs [of Anöus stolidus] were nearly ready to hatch, and there would be an overwhelming increase of this species yearly but for the check which nature has provided in the presence of a small Lizard, which is very abundant in their breeding-places, and which finds an easy prey in the young of this Noddy and of Sterna fuliginosa. I am satisfied that not more than one out of every twenty birds hatched ever reaches maturity, or lives long enough to take wing; besides which great numbers of the old birds are constantly killed. These Lizards do not eat the whole bird, but merely extract the brain and vertebral marrow; the remainder is, however, soon cleared off by the Dermestes lardarius,