142 ANIMAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



France and therefore should not be included among British 

 species unless they occur also in England, Wales, Scotland, or 

 Ireland. The two species referred to are the Green Lizard 

 (Lacerta mridis\ with tail equal to three-fourths of its entire 

 length, and the Wall Lizard (Lacerta muralis) of variable 

 brown coloration and a tail one and a half times the length of 

 the head and body. The Green Lizard may sometimes be seen 

 in this country as an escape from captivity, being a favourite 

 subject with the keepers of vivaria. 



SlOW-WOrm (Anguisfragilis, Linn.). 



The average person cannot understand why the naturalist 

 should be so " pig-headed" as to regard the Slow- worm, Blind- 

 worm or Deaf-adder as a lizard when it is so obviously a snake, 

 and has no legs such as a properly constructed lizard should 

 have. If the naturalist were given to argument of the hi quoque 

 order he might retort by asking why the average man persists 

 in styling a swift-gliding reptile a Slow-worm, or one with 

 brilliant eyes a Blind-worm? But the probability is that he 

 will quote Longfellow and tell the inquirer that "things are 

 not [always] what they seem" that under the close and 

 polished, uniform scaly covering there are vestiges of limbs 

 that have been discarded in the long evolutionary history of 

 the species ; that it has eyelids like other lizards, that the two 

 sides of the lower jaw have a bony union in front, and that it 

 has a notched not forked tongue characters that do not agree 

 with the structure of any snake. But all this will fall upon deaf 

 ears, and the average man will go on slaughtering Slow-worms 

 at sight, and believing that he has done a brave and meritorious 

 thing. 



The Slow-worm attains a maximum length of seventeen or 

 eighteen inches, but the average "large" example is about a 

 foot long. Its head is quite small and short, not so broad as 



