404 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



behind the small inconspicuous head is a pair of five-toed feet. In the blind- 

 worm of Europe, and the other forms to be mentioned, there is no trace of 

 any legs to be seen from the outside. The blind-worm looks almost exactly 

 like a snake ; it is common in Europe, but belies its name in not being 

 blind. It is replaced in the southern United States by a very interesting 

 species, the glass-snake. Allusion was made a few pages back to the 

 habit of the geckos of breaking off their tails; but in the glass-snake this 

 power is far greater. The slightest blow is sufficient to break the tail 

 from the body ; but this is an affair of comparatively little importance. In 

 common belief, the lizard backs up to its tail after the disturbance is over,. 



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Fig. 352. — Skink (Scincus officinalis). 



and then the member quickly grows on again. This is really not the case. 

 What does occur is that the body rapidly grows a new tail, as useful and 

 as fragile as the old one. It occasionally occurs with these, as with other 

 forms with similar capacities of reparation, that the tail will not be 

 entirely detached ; then the new tail grows out beside the old one, and 

 a monstrous two-tailed specimen is the result. 



This capacity is evidently of considerable good to the species ; for the 

 loss of a tail is far better than to lose the life, as might otherwise happen 

 when a hawk or an owl pounces down upon one of these creatures. The 

 glass-snake is yellowish green, varied with black above, and yellow beneath. 

 It spends most of its life in burrowing beneath the surface of the ground, 

 moving about only by the contortions of the body. 



