Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1881 — A Sagacious Lizard. [ARTICLE]

A Sagacious Lizard.

New York Ban. “Thia is the third one that has been found in the park this spring,” said a man at the Arsenal, holding out a curious spiny looking object for a reporter to lopk at “No, it’s not a toad, though they call them horned .‘ toads. It’s a lizard, and the people in the.; museum call it the pbrynosma.” The animal was about four inches* long and unpleasant to look at. Its body was flat, the upper surface covered with abort dark spines, and the under surface with small plates. The back of its head was armed with several recurving short spines with shorter spines here and there. ' “You wouldn’t think such a jreature would know anything.” continued the owner of the lizard, “but a snake'has to wake up early in the season to get the best of it I call him Samson, because the first day I had him he pushed under the leg of a heavy chair that was tipped against the wall, and fairly knocked it over. Haman were as strong in proportion to his size he could lift the obelisk. No, that didn’t show any cunning, but PH show you < where toe cunning came. I caught a big striped snake about two weeks ago. I was standing in my yard when z long came a big toad putting in its best hops, and right behind the snake, so intent on the chase that it came right up to me. I caught it and kept it for some time in a box with a glass top, ; and one day it struck me that the spines on .the lizard must have been Intended a preventer against snakes. I thought I would test it, and I nut Samson into the box. Then I discovered that he was as wise as solo mon. You see, this revised Testament business makes a man familiar with Bible names. The snake evidently had not tasted food since last summer—you know they sleep all winter—and quick as a flash he darted at the lizard, but as the boys say, he got left. The little fellow went around the boxlike a shot, but finally the snake cornered him and caught him by the hind claw. Now, a toad or frog will squirm around and face a snake and get demoralized generally and give it a chance to catch hold of the head, but my lizard knew a game worth two of that. When the snake touched him he turned his head directly away. The snake tried every way he could to edge up and get the little by the head, so he went to work to swallow him tail first. He stretched out his jaw and planted his long teeth into the legs and gradually worked the body into nte mouth with - the smaller teeth. When be bad taken in as much as he could in this way, the longfangs were loosened and thrown ahead and and fresh hold taken, each side of the mouth edging ahead in turn. Nothing could stand this pressure long, and in ten minutes half of the patient lizard was out of tight. He was only waiting for his turn, and it soon came; the snake’s lips had reached his neck, when operations ceased. There were four or five spines as sharp as needles, pointing out every which way, that put an end to the swallowing* business. I didn’t see the lizard laugh: he must have felt like it, for he wasn’t hurt in the least. It took the snake half an hour to get rid of him. At every jump the lizard turned his back so that the spines faced the snake, and at last I separated them. Yes it was rather cruel; but I looked at it as a scientific investigation.