GECKO. A lizard of the family Geckonidu, which naturalists have divided into many genera. The geckos are of small size, and generally of re pulsive aspect; the colors of most of them are+ dull, and the small granular scales with which they are covered are in general mingled with tubercles. The legs are short, the gait usually slow, measured, and stealthy, although geckos can also run very nimbly when danger presses, and often disappear suddenly when they seem almost to be struck or caught. The feet are remarkable, being adapted for adhering to smooth surfaces, so that geckos not only readily climb trees or walls, but creep inverted on ceilings, or hang on the lower side of large leaves. The body and tail are never crested, but are some times furnished with lateral membranes, va riously festooned or fringed, and sometimes so large as to be of use to arboreal species in enabling them to take long leaps from branch to branch. Such is the case with the flying or fringed gecko (Ptychozoon, homalocepha turn) of the Malaysian region. The geckos feed chiefly on insects. They are quarrelsome, and will sometimes devour their eggs or young, and even their own tails and exuviated skins. They are natives of warm climates, and are very widely distributed over the world, and are more or less nocturnal in their habits. Two species are found in the south of Europe, both of which frequently enter houses, as do the geckos of Egypt, India, Ceylon (the `chucha'), and other warm countries. Only one gecko (Sphcerodac
lylus notatus) dwells in the United States, al though three or. four kinds are found in southern California and Mexico. It is scarcely two inches in length, and is sparingly found in Florida and Cuba.
The name 'gecko' is derived from a peculiar cry often uttered by some of the species, and which in some of them resembles syllables dis tinctly pronounced, while others are described as enlivening the night in tropical forests by a harsh cackle, such as that which gives the `croaking lizard' (Theocodactylus lcevis), so abun dant in Jamaica, its lugubrious name. The geckos have, in almost all parts of the world where they are found, a bad reputation as venomous, and as imparting injurious qualities to food which they touch; but there is no good evidence in support of any such opinion. They lay a few eggs in some warm hollow of a stump, or similar place, and pay little attention to them or to the young. In cool countries they hibernate. Consult: Gadow, Amphibia and Rep tiles (London, 1901) ; Gosse, A Naturalist's So journ in Jamaica (London, 1851). See Colored Plate of LIZARDS.