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Show 632 MR. STANLEY S. FLOWER ON THE [May 16, rare or local; I have not met it myself there, nor remember meeting any Englishman who had seen it for certain, but men have told me they have heard it in parts of Perak and Pahang. In Siam, however, it is one of the commonest animals that attracts the attention of everybody, however unobservant or indifferent to natural history : I have met it in Bangkok, Ayuthia, Pakpreo, Patriew, Pachim, Tahkamen, and Cbantaboon. Habits. The Tokay is very numerous both in towns and country in Siam, almost every house is inhabited by one or more, and they do not shun the busiest places ; for instance, two or three of these striking lizards are to be seen any evening in either tbe Club or Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, playing and feeding on the walls, perfectly indifferent to the buzz of conversation and click of billiard-balls. Each Tokay usually has its particular hole or crevice which it sleeps in regularly every day, and retires to at any time if frightened. It gets its popular name from its remarkable loud call. Each call consists of, 1st, one " preliminary cackle " (or sometimes two) ; 2nd, the word to-kay very distinctly and deliberately pronounced and repeated usually six, seven, or eight times, though I have counted it eleven times. This cry of " tokay " can be distinctly heard at 120 paces (approximately 100 yards) from the spot where the lizard is calling. Besides this well-known loud call, the Tokay when alarmed or angry can make a strong hissing or puffing noise in a threatening manner, at the same time blowing the sides of its body in and out and opening its mouth wide ready to bite. The Tokay (in Bangkok) commences calling in December; the 5th is the earliest date I have heard it, but it does not become usual till the latter part of the month. In January it is to be heard at intervals almost every evening, especially towards the end of the month. In February it is more frequent at night and occasionally to be heard during the day. In the hot weather of March, April, and May it is often to be heard calling all night long, in one direction or another ; in the old W a n g N a (2nd King's Palace) in Bangkok, on particularly hot nights, the noise of " tokay, tokay" was almost continuous, one lizard after another taking up the cry ; at this season, too, it is not unusual to hear one calling in the morning or at midday. In June it becomes much quieter, till in the first half of Julv often only one will be heard during: a whole evening. In 1897 the last Tokay heard calling that I have a note of was on July 20th, in 1898 July 17th, and once again on August 14. During the autumn, so far as m y experience goes, it remains mute and begins again in December. The little house-lizards (Hemidactylus frenatus, H.platyurus, and Gehyra mutilata), though, are almost as noisy in July and November as in the spring ; their cry of " tok, tok, tok," repeated five to eight times with increased celerity, is a very different thing to the resonant, measured call of Gecko verticillatus. In March 1897, in the jungle to the south of Tahkamen, in Eastern Siam, I heard the ordinary preliminary cackle of this |