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Updated: May 28, 2025
The little blue Psittacus Taitianus frequents the top of the cocoa-palm; the Ardea sacra walks along the coral reefs; but it is seldom that a tropical bird is seen on the wing. A Gecko of the species Hemidactylus lives about old houses; a small lizard of the family of Scincoidea, with a copper-coloured body and a blue tail, and a striped Ablepharus, are met with frequently among the rocks.
Here I reposed awhile, watching the crossbills, wondrously tame, at work among the branches overhead, and the emerald lizard peering out of the bracken at my side. The natives are rather afraid of it, and still more so of the harmless gecko, the "salamide," which is reputed highly poisonous.
The feet, unlike those of water-fowls, were furnished with several folds of skin in lieu of webs, and resembled much the feet of the gecko lizards. After exhibiting it to us, she put it back again into its tub, and it went swimming round and round, very much like those magnetic ducks which are sold in toyshops.
"By the bye, there is one which is said to be very venomous. I have heard many well-authenticated stories of the bite being not only very dangerous, but in some instances fatal. I have specimens of the animal in my collection. It is called here the geitje." "Well, it is rather remarkable, but we have in India a small lizard, called the gecko by the natives, which is said to be equally venomous.
Through this time of being chased by this desperate canine mob with its ineluctable barking of mute voices that howled the essence of the void which epitomized the planet, there was a background wall of a standing rack or trellis on which used shoes hung like vines for pedestrian purchasers; an occasional bloody limb dangled from one of the ragged sports shoes, and a gecko hung on one of the shoes' tongues.
In the book of Deuteronomy there is an allusion made to a destructive creature in the following terms: "Their wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps." It is thought that the gecko is the animal contemplated in this description, it being acknowledged by all naturalists to contain a mortal poison.
Still, he would travel inward and explore what was there for as long as it was bearable. At least so he said in silent thought, with only partial belief. The gecko, barely visible in the smoky fog of marijuana, reaffixed itself on a portion of wall above the night stand.
The gecko is a kind of nocturnal lizard. Its eyes are large, and the pupil is extremely contractile. It hides itself during the day, and is lively only at nights. It haunts rooms, especially kitchens, in Egypt, where it finds the insects which form its ordinary food. Its feet constitute its most marked characteristic.
The popular prejudice against them causes the death of many a poor gecko, who, had he been allowed to live, would have rendered good service to his persecutors. Those in the houses are of small size; but others, existing in the forest, and living in the crevices of the trees, are of considerable magnitude.
Although the skinless nude lying there was a bit like a boy praying after slipping out of his clothes, forgetful of getting into his pajamas, the gecko was not able to make this connection. It just assumed that the skinned and fairly inanimate human was playing dead to save itself from becoming its meat.
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