288 THE REV. J. G. WOOD. 



besides himself, and took an opportunity of slaying- his 

 supposed rival in the temporary absence of his master. 



Once a blind-worm was brought home, and kept for 

 some time, serving, indeed, as the model from which 

 the description in the larger Natural History was 

 taken. After a short time, nine little blind-worms 

 unexpectedly made their appearance, and presented the 

 strange phenomenon of steadily increasing in size, 

 apparently without taking food of any kind at all. Yet 

 they went through all the actions of slug-catching, just 

 as though they were quite big blind-worms, instead of 

 little creatures not much more than an inch in total 

 length. 



" When I introduced the slugs," writes my father, 

 " the odd little reptiles acted just as their mother was 

 doing, followed the slugs about with their heads, 

 hovered over them, and made believe to eat them, and 

 then were quietly walked over by their intended prey - r 

 which, being nearly twice as big as themselves, 

 proceeded on their course without paying the least 

 regard to the tiny reptiles, whose bodies were not larger 

 than ordinary knitting-needles, and easily glided over 

 them, or put them to ignominious flight." 



Of toads my father had many, from the time when 

 " a small six-year-old naturalist, with a magnifying- 

 glass always open in one hand, and an empty pill-box 

 in the other" he "used to potter up and down the 

 garden " in search of any natural history object that 

 might present itself. And he wrote a special article 

 about them in Once a Week, which afterwards was- 



