Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/114

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106
SAURIA.—AGAMADÆ.

cited from Brown, belong to the Cyclura, which we know to be an inhabitant of the district mentioned by the former. In another passage, however, it appears to have been a true Iguana, which he speaks of as having been brought from the Isle of Pines, “of a wonderful size, being, as they judged, between six and seven feet in length. . . The hind quarter weighed five pounds, whence they concluded that the Iguana must have weighed twenty pounds.”


Family IV. Agamadæ.

(Agamas.)

The subjects of the present group are by some zoologists (among whom are the great French herpetologists we have so often cited) considered as forming a division of the Iguanadæ; but they are by others elevated to the rank of a Family, and as such we prefer to treat of them. Their most important distinctions are to be found in the teeth; these are entirely wanting in the palate; and those of the jaw, instead of being implanted on its inner side, are seated on the ridge of the jaw-bone, to which they are soldered, and of which they appear to be a continuation.

In the form of the head and of the teeth the Agamadæ resemble the true Lizards, but differ from them in the imbricated scales with which their tails are clothed. The body is for the most part thicker and shorter than the usual proportions; the skin is loose and capable of being inflated with air at pleasure; the head is short, flat, and broad, particularly behind; the neck