Family V. Varanidæ.
(Monitors.)
These are Lizards of large size, in some respects approaching the Crocodiles. MM. Duméril and Bibron, who designate them by the appellation of Broad-backed Saurians, assign to them the following characters. They have the body very much elongated, rounded, and without a dorsal crest, supported on strong legs and feet, with distinct and very long, but unequal toes. The tail is slightly compressed, and at least twice as long as the trunk. The skin is furnished with enchased scales, which are tuberculous, projecting, rounded upon the head, as well as upon the back and sides, always distributed in rings or circular bands, parallel under the belly and round the tail. The tongue is protractile, fleshy, and similar to that of the Serpents,—that is to say, capable of elongation, and of being withdrawal into a sheath,—narrow and flattened at the base, and deeply divided and separated at the extremity into two points.
They are distinguished from the other Families by evident and easily seized peculiarities. From the Crocodilidæ, in the toes which are all furnished with claws, and never palmated at the base; in the cutaneous tubercles, which are neither square nor furnished with projecting ridges; in the protractile tongue; in the form of the teeth, the pupils, the auditory conduits, and especially in the male genital organs, which are double. From the Chameleonidæ, because their tongue is
