Can Change Coat When It Likes.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19240, 29 November 1930, Page 8

Can Change Coat When It Likes.

Nature Notes.

By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. came from Arthur’s Pass a few weeks ago an exceptionally handsome lizard, about seven inches long, including the tail. It wore a velvet coat, light brown, prettily marked with bands and irregular patches Of dark brown. It was a very good specimen of the longtoed lizard, whose official title is almost as long as its tail: Dactylocnemis granulatus. This New Zealand gecko has the faculty of changing its brown coat to a coat of pinky red, sometimes three or four times a day, with no obvious reason, except sheer love of change.

A North Island naturalist, who kept a long-tailed lizard in captivity, often tried, by altering its position in respect to the’ light and to heat from the sun, and by gently shaking it, to cause it to change its colour, but never succeeded. The change seemed to depend completely on the lizard itself, not on any outside conditions. The changes were not made regularly, or at any particular time. These lizards live on trees, mostly in the forests, where their brown costumes at least harmonise with their surroundings, giving them a measure of protection from their great enemies, the birds. They declare long fasts. One of them fasted for six weeks or more, refusing flies, which lizards usually eat greedily, and taking only a little water at intervals of several days. There are green geckos and brown geckos. Little is known about the domestic affairs of brown geckos, except that they are nocturnal, and, in the day time, hide under the bark of trees, or, as in the case of the shorttoed lizard, common in the South Island, under stones.

CALLING”! What an amazing picture these two words conjure up; how fantastic they seem! Yet before long they may be heard by wireless listeners. Ibn Sa’ud, ruler of the Wahabis, King of Hedjaz and thp Nejd, and Keeper of the Holy Places, Mecca and Medina, is having a great wireless station built by a British firm at Mecca—the Islamic holy of holies, where no man may show his face unless he be a True Believer. To rule his country Ibn Sa’ud has used aeroplanes and desert artillery, and part of his army has been mechanised. He has even introduced motoromnibuses. Now comes his latest innovation—radio, which is to include wireless stations in other cities of the Hedjaz in addition to Mecca. While the muezzin on the minaret of the great mosque at Mecca calls the Faithful to prayer the Arab operator at the wireless station at hand will call the world to tell of the day’s happenings in Arabia.