Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1884-02-13
NO. Is
CLIMBING LIZARDS.
A novel Method of Housobre reRkin4
praoeiced tn India.

EF@GGAC80 Rm EACIhs
"Speaking about lizards" said a nat-
uralist, 81 will tell you story that will
probably astonish you. The incident
am about to relate occurred in India,
and won't undertake to describe the
place or the people. The natives that /
met there, however, were nearly all po.
sessed with the belief that their CHIEF
mission in the world Uas to take poses
sion of whatever fbBy could lay Their
hands on. I was advised to keep things
under lock and key, and so did, but after
q stay of a month [ became rather care
less, and having the second story of a
stone house, felt pretty secure. One
night after | had put out my light and
sat down to smoke, as was my custom, /
heard curious scratching noise under
the window, and, looking out, perceived
several figures below crouching in the
darkness. / thought nothing of it,
though, as there was no way Tor thieves
to get iu, and returned to my chair. But
in moment heard the same scratching
noise, as if some one were ragping the
stone with a sharp instrument. F6F
about ten minutes this continued. Every
once in a while the noise ceased, and
there was thud as if some one had fallen.
In the mean time the moon, which had
been under cloud, came out, and hear
ing the noise nearer the window than
ever, [ leaned over and looked dowk
through the lattice again. saw three
men. One was STOPPING down, and an
other upon his back was reaching up the
wall. Soon, in some mysterious manner
the man moved directly upward. On hs
came with the curious scraping sound
Then there was slip and the man fell
and was caught by his companions. l
had a heavy club in the room, and taking
it moved my seat over by the window,
and lay low wondering what sort of =
machine they had that enabled them %
go up straight wall In about twenty
minutes, after several more slips and
much scraping, saw black object
moving up over the sill, but it was not
! the bead Of man 4 second later, how
ever, human hand grasped tbe window,
and brought the cInb down upon it and
the black object with all the power i
could muster. With yell the would be
thief went tumbling down the twenty
| feet or more of wall, and [ soon heard
footsteps going down the road on dead
run. / Immediately ran down, calling
my man as went, expecting to find >
rope or cord of some kind, but there waR
nothing of the sort, and gave it up as =
mystery. Stepping back to goin | sturA-
bled over something, and, looking down,
found it was a large lizard stone dead.
LIS skull was broken What do you sup
pose my man told me, and which [ found
out later was true? Nothing less than
that | had killed the lizard by my blow
at the thief, and that the animal hauled
him up the side of the house. These
lizards are very powerful, and have long,
sharp claws When grasped by the tail
and placed agrinst wall, up they go
with force quite sufficient to pull up. =
small man after them. 1t was the.
scratches of the animals claws [ had
heard. I guess this is about as novel 3,
method of housebreaking as there is on,
record. | understood, however, that it
was not an uncommon thing.-NeW York
San.