Our screened back deck is a wonderful addition to the house. Rather than a deck we refer to it as our aviary, for it is home to a half a dozen European goldfinches that entertain us non-stop. But we could just as well call it our "lizardarium," for despite deterring the omnipresent mosquitoes many local lizards wander in and out along pathways known only to them.

Broad-headed skinks appear now and again, but most of the lizards are one of two kinds of anoles, the native green or the introduced Cuban brown. The green anoles are the most active and the most arboreal, and as I watch their antics my thoughts often drift back to the first green anoles I ever saw.



It was in the 1940s, I was 7 or 8 years old, and the anoles, a slender golden chain affixed around their neck (no photos), were being offered for sale as living lapel decorations at the New York Sportsman’s Show.

They were being sold as American chameleons, and with them came a care sheet that explained that all the purchaser needed to do to assure the lizard a long life was to provide it with sugar water.

I had never seen such wonderful creature and sugar water would be easy enough to provide, so I wheedled my parents into buying me one lizard. Through trial and error I learned that the little lizard needed a much more varied diet than sugar water and that when he was turned loose on my mother’s houseplants he avidly hunted houseflies and other insect repast.

Could this little lizard have been the cause of my lifelong infatuation with herps? Well, it and the long ago herp supply company, Quivira Specialties, certainly were contributors to my lingering interest.

More photos under the jump...