126 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



The young ones are born in August or September, 

 about a dozen in a litter. One hardly knows whether 

 to say born or hatched, for the transparent, yellowish 

 egg envelope ig burst just as each egg is laid. This 

 liberates a fully formed miniature Slow Worm, about 

 an inch and a half long, and the thickness of a stout 

 knitting needle. Dr. Gadow states in the " Cambridge 

 Natural History" that "the young ones eat the 

 smallest of Spiders and delicate Insects; later on 

 Earthworms, which they bite into and then suck out 

 before devouring. When six weeks old and well fed 

 they are about three inches long, but it is at least four 

 or five years before they are mature." When they are 

 quite young they crowd around their mother, who 

 looks as if she cared for them. 



The second part of the technical name Anguis 

 fragilis refers to the ease with which the Slow Worm 

 surrenders part of its tail when it is struck or caught 

 a self-mutilation (or "autotomy") that often saves 

 the animal's life. What is surrendered can be slowly 

 replaced, though the second tail is not so well finished 

 as the first. This surrender of a part is a very inter- 

 esting adaptation, and a striking feature is that the 

 rupture takes place not between two adjacent ver- 

 tebrae, but along a prepared breakage-plane which 

 goes right through a vertebra. We have lingered too 

 long over the Slow Worm, but we cannot leave it 

 without saying that whoever succeeds in making a 

 pet of it will discover something new. 



On a dry sandy stretch of the moor with a con- 

 siderable growth of Hawkweeds, Bladder Campion, 

 Clover, Lady's Fingers, Cocksfoot Grass, and so forth, 

 there are brilliant emerald Beetles which run about 



