He gazed at Phil in quizzical amusement, and asked him what he wanted in Arabia.
"To see a Camel," Phil replied, and the Lizard gave a dry little chuckle.
"You will have to go down to the plains for that," he said, "and the wind will blow the sand into your eyes. Better stay here with me. The shade is pleasant, and dates are sweet."
Phil shook his head.
"I have come a long way to see the Camel," he persisted. "Have I far to go before I shall find him?"
The Thorny-tailed Lizard—for this was he—blinked several times before he spoke again.
"Not far for you," he said at last, "for Nature has given you invisible wings to your feet. Before you go have a look at my burrow. It is a simple little affair, but very comfortable, and when I tuck my head and body inside it I am quite safe. If the Arabs, who find me as dainty eating as they do Locusts, try to pull me out by my tail, it comes off in their hands, and I grow another. He! he! he!"
The Lizard was quite a character in his way, and Phil spent a pleasant half-hour with him. His burrow, though only a deep long hole in the sand-bank, was very cosy, and Mrs. Thorny-tail was most intelligent. She had a great deal to say to Phil about a demure Red Locust who showed some inclination, to bite him as he bade her farewell at the entrance to the burrow.
"He belongs to the same family as the Grasshoppers," she remarked, as, much discomfited at what she said to him, the Locust flew away. "But instead of leaping through the air as they do, he uses his strong wings, which carry him very far."
"He scarcely looks large enough to do all the harm they say," said Phil, who had heard of him from the Butterfly. "I should have thought him quite a harmless creature if I had not known."