198 OBSERVATIONS ON REPTILES. 



the new tail never acquires fresh vertebras ;* and if 

 carefully opened with fine scissars throughout its 

 length, a stoutish nervous chord will be found occu- 

 pying their place, reaching to the extreme tip, the 

 vertebrae stopping where the original fracture took 

 place. So common is it for this animal to have its 

 tail injured, that sometimes several may be opened, 

 one after another, apparently having the tail quite 

 perfect, but in which the vertebrae will be found 

 stopping short of the tip by a longer or shorter 

 interval, indicating the extreme portion of it to be 

 of after-growth, in consequence of such accident, as 

 is above alluded to. 



The number of living young sometimes produced 

 by this reptile is very considerable. I once opened 

 a gravid female, which I found in the fens near here, 

 from which I extracted no less than ten young ones, 

 fully formed, and apparently ready for exclusion. f 

 Each was closely coiled up in its own ovum, the 

 coats of which were very thin and membranous ; 

 nevertheless, when stretched out, these little ones 

 already measured an inch and an half, though the 

 entire length of the mother scarcely exceeded five 

 inches. This must have been a heavy burden for 

 the poor parent to carry about, the whole cavity of 



* This is not offered as a new fact, though perhaps not gene- 

 rally known. I believe Duges was the first who made the obser- 

 vation. 



t Mr. Bell, in his British Reptiles, says "the usual number 

 is from three to six." 



