THE SLOW-WORM. 77 



their hands? "Ugh!" (quite involuntarily) "no, 

 thank you !" 1 recollect taking a few once to a 

 natural history meeting (where certainly folks ought 

 to have known better) and one happened to get on 

 the floor. It was ludicrous to see how instan- 

 taneously that floor was vacated, and every lady 

 was standing on a chair. Poor Anguis fragilis ! he 

 was picked up by a friend and replaced in his box, 

 much to his own satisfaction and that of the ladies. 



Slow-worms used to be very plentiful in the 

 Quakers' burial ground in a town where I formerly 

 lived, and were killed by dozens when the grass was 

 mown, the man using a stick about ten feet long, 

 so that he might be out of danger. On lifting up 

 the flat stones we often came upon six or seven at 

 once, and although the creature in a general way 

 deserves its name, it can in times of peril make off 

 pretty briskly as it attempted to do then. On being 

 seized it twists itself in and out between one's fingers 

 in a manner peculiarly unpleasant to those not 

 accustomed to it. I took home three or four and 

 put them into a good sized box with some earth and 

 rockwork, beneath which they soon formed regular 

 hiding places. They are not all of the same colour, 

 some being of a rich sienna brown with darker 

 markings, and others of a leaden hue ; whether this 

 denotes distinction of sex, or is a mark of age, I am 

 not prepared to say for certain, but all the old ones 

 I have ever seen were of the dull hue, and I never 

 saw any young ones that were not bright brown. I 

 came across one at six a.m. in a ramble tip a lane. 

 I was hunting for molluscs and heard my dog barking 

 as if she liacl ma.de a, discovery. Such I found was 



