As the goddess emptied the vessel at one draught, Ascalabus laughed at her, and ordered a whole cask to be brought.
Demeter, indignant at the boy's conduct, sprinkled the few remaining drops from her vessel upon him and thereby changed him into a gecko.
[1] The tale is preserved in Antoninus Liberalis' Metamorphoses, which cites Nicander's lost Heteroeumena.
The tale is also told in Ovid's Metamorphoses,[2] though Ascalabus and his mother go unnamed: "presumably... to avoid confusion with Ascalaphus".
[3] In Roman versions of the story, where Demeter is called Ceres, Ascalabus is often named Stellio.