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When pressed by hunger, it climbs at night the trees and shrubs in which humming-birds and other small birds are perched, or have built their nests, and springing on them, grasps them with its powerful claws. It seizes the anolis, a kind of water-lizard, in the same way.
If the wind blew with violence, it was because the water-lizard, which makes the wind, had crawled out of his pool; if the lightning was sharp and frequent, it was because the young of the thunder-bird were restless in their nest; if a blight fell upon the corn, it was because the Corn Spirit was angry; and if the beavers were shy and difficult to catch, it was because they had taken offence at seeing the bones of one of their race thrown to a dog.
It gets its four legs but does not lose its tail; it never loses its tail. In short, it is not a frog or a toad, but a salamander or water-lizard, which lays eggs similar to those of the frog, and whose young upon first hatching look very much like young tadpoles. If eggs are found in a pond where frogs are not heard or seen, they will almost always turn out to be the eggs of a salamander.
Other amphibious creatures I perceived at times a large water-lizard that almost rivalled the crocodiles in bulk and I once had a peep at the rare creature, the "red water-bog" of the Cameroons for the little river we were anchored in was not far from the same latitude as the Cameroons itself, and the same species inhabited both.
"Bery good eat," exclaimed Chickango when he saw the little monsters. "What!" cried out Leo; "you do not mean to say you would eat those hideous creatures?" "I suspect we shall have no objection to do so," said David. "They are varanians, a species of water-lizard, very similar to the iguanas of the New World, which are considered great delicacies. Ugly as they look, they are perfectly harmless."
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