Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1907-10-09
HoBNED LIZARD.
Which Elects Blood from It's Eyes at
WiIl--It stands Unique.

/ A letter from st. Louis says no
creature In the world but the horned
lizard can eject blood from its eyes
Ihat reptile now stands unique
among all the creeping, crawling,
flying, walking things of animal ma
ture. 1t is the only animal on earth
whose eye is an offensive weapon, a
squirt gun to eject what may prove
to be a poisonous fluid
So strange and fantastic is this
habit of the horned lizard that sober
scientists pooh.poohed the stories
told by. Indians and "greasers2 of the
Southwest, where on sandy. supe.,-
heated, excessively dry plains the
lizard has its habitat. No class of
men IN the world are more conserve
tive than the scientists. Yet nobody
better than they appreciates and un-
derstands the wonders to be expect
ed of nature. They are willing to
investigate and study day and night,
because they know that what infor-
nation they now have is but a tiny
portion Sof the staggering wonders
lcreations has iyet to reveal. go
but the story that the horned liz
ards eye is a syringe used to resist
attacks from its enemies was too
grotesque, too utterly at variance
with every, other known fact of anat-
lomy and physiology to receive con-
Isideration even from the most in
quisitive of the mature students.
Naturally they look upon such un-
heard-of tales as vagaries of the igno-
rant and superstitious or weird illu-
sions of men whose brains had be-
come unhinged by intense heat and
drought in the desert.
Among all creatures of fwhich SCI
ence had knowledge, the eye had one
function and one function alone ,iden-
tical in all cases. The eye is the
organ of vision. There are strange
things to be found In the eyes OF ami
mails, but every popularity of the
optic construction is to meet some
peculiar and special need of the par
ticular creature All the different
formations and constructions are
based only on laws of optics. Until
the horned lizards popularity was
seen and verified, no eye had ever
been heard of which, was more than
a machine for seeing. #
But theylizard, when aroused to a
high pitch of anger or fearful of
great and impending danger, stiffens
itself, makes it's eyelids rigid and
then, exerting some inward force yet
unexplai,i. d, elects from the corner
OF Its eye Jet of blood that shoots
many feet and is of volume enough
to spatter big stains on a wall.
The first time this phenomenon
was recently observed by scientist,
he was startled and amazed. He had
heard stories about the habit of the
horned lizard, but was skepticaI and
had dismissed them from his mind.
He was engaged in measuring fine
specimen of the lizard when the ami
NAL, after exhibiting signs of great
excitement, suddenly grew rigid and
shot out a stream Of blood from it's
eye, the elected fluid passing close
TO the head of the naturalist. 1t gave
him a distinct nervous shock, but he
felt the thrill of scientist confront
ed by a new discovery. "H 2"
The man was Raymond L. Ditmars,
curator of reptiles in the New York
zoo. Like other scientists, he had
riticuled the idea of the animals eye
being a syringe, but convinced beyond
doubt of what he witnessed. He was
described in the incident in his new
contribution to scientific literature,
The Reptile Book" just published.
Mr.. .Ditmars says the lizards are