LIZARDS. 118 
venture to use their teeth, not even when I have caught them in 
the hedges. I have read of Slow-worms snapping savagely at the 
fingers, so I suppose the Anguis fragilis will occasionally defend 
itself by biting. 
A great many people still look upon the Slow-worm as a kind 
of Snake. Only lately I noticed, while reading two popular 
modern writers on natural history, that they both classed the 
Slow-worm as a Snake. However, it is a Lizard without any 
doubt, for it answers in many respects to the description already 
given of the Glass Snake (P. pallasw, Fig. 42); but unlike the 
latter it has no external rudiments of limbs. 
The Slow-worm has received its generic title from its outward 
resemblance to a Snake, and it owes its specific name to its 
extreme brittleness. Like most Lizards its tail is very readily 
severed from the body. It is a useful animal, for it lives chiefly 
upon slugs, not confining itself, as has been said, to one 
particular white kind. I asked a gardener one day, who was 
complaining to me of these molluscs, why he killed the Slow- 
worms. ‘‘Oh! them’s nasty things,” he exclaimed; ‘‘and I 
always kills them whenever I gets the chance.” A prejudice is 
far harder to kill than any amount of Reptiles. Slow-worms, like 
the common Lizards, are much more numerous than is generally 
supposed. They are not easily seen at the bottom of the hedges 
and among the moss of the banks, and they do not, like Z.. 
vivipara, rush off on the slightest alarm, but remain instead, quite 
motionless, and therefore, are passed by unnoticed and unheard. 
The Slow-worms make regular runs, or burrows, in the thick 
moss which often covers our country banks, and their basking- 
places may be easily recognised by those who know what to look 
for, as the soft vegetation retains for, a considerable time the im- 
pression of their body. When such a “sunning spot” is found, 
its position may be marked in some way or other, and probably 
the little animal will be seen there when next the sun is shining 
brightly. 
The creature is easily mistaken by a casual observer for a piece 
of polished stick or a portion of an exposed and smooth small root 
of a tree. When discovered, the Slow-worm can be picked up 
with ease. But as this Reptile is so brittle it requires careful 
I 
