Alligators, buaya (Crocodilus biporcatus of Cuvier), abound in most of the rivers, grow to a large Size, and do much mischief.

The guana, or iguana, biawak (Lacerta iguana) is another animal of the lizard kind, about three or four feet in length, harmless, excepting to the poultry and young domestic cattle, and sometimes itself eaten as food.  The bingkarong is next in size, has hard, dark scales on the back, and is often found under heaps of decayed timber; its bite venomous.

The koke, goke, or toke, as it is variously called, is a lizard, about ten or twelve inches long, frequenting old buildings, and making a very singular noise.  Between this and the small house-lizard (chichak) are many gradations in size, chiefly of the grass-lizard kind, which is smooth and glossy.  The former are in length from about four inches down to an inch or less, and are the largest reptiles that can walk in an inverted situation:  one of these, of size sufficient to devour a cockroach, runs on the ceiling of a room, and in that situation seizes its prey with the utmost facility.  This they seem to be enabled to do from the rugose structure of their feet, with which they adhere strongly to the smoothest surface.  Sometimes however, on springing too eagerly at a fly, they lose their hold, and drop to the floor, on which occasions a circumstance occurs not undeserving of notice.  The tail being frequently separated from the body by the shock (as it may be at any of the vertebrae by the slightest force, without loss of blood or evident pain to the animal, and sometimes, as it would seem, from the effect of fear alone) within a little time, like the mutilated claw of a lobster, begins to renew itself.  They are produced from eggs about the size of the wren’s, of which the female carries two at a time, one in the lower, and one in the upper part of the abdomen, on opposite sides; they are always cold to the touch, and yet the transparency of their bodies gives an opportunity of observing that their fluids have as brisk a circulation as those of warm-blooded animals:  in none have I seen the peristaltic motion so obvious as in these.  It may not be useless to mention that these phenomena were best observed at night when the lizard was on the outside of a pane of glass, with a candle on the inside.  There is, I believe, no class of living creatures in which the gradations can be traced with such minuteness and regularity as in this; where, from the small animal just described, to the huge alligator or crocodile, a chain may be traced containing almost innumerable links, of which the remotest have a striking resemblance to each other, and seem, at first view, to differ only in bulk.

CHAMELEON.