74 A NATURE WOOING. 



and another March Orthopteran is added to my Flor- 

 ida list. The lizard is finally unearthed. The last jab 

 of the trowel unluckily "details" him, but the tail 

 and body, both squirming, are con- 

 signed to the bottle of alcohol. A 

 few minutes later a young example 

 of the same lizard, six inches in 

 length, and possessing a bright 

 blue tail, is taken. This lizard 

 is the only one of our North Amer- 

 Fig.2i. ican species which has the distinc- 



tion of bei "red-headed" when 



(Male.) c 



old, and "blue-tailed" when young. 

 The variations between these two forms are many 

 and have been the cause of much confusion in the 

 descriptions of the animal. Even Holbrook, the 

 father of American Herpetology, described and fig- 

 ured the two forms as different, calling the old red- 

 headed one Scincus quinquelineatus, and the younger 

 blue-tailed one, 8. fasciatus. 



In a marl outcrop in a cut of the railway at the 

 edge of a hammock a mile northwest of Ormond, the 

 so-called "marl" is found to be a mass of finely com- 

 minuted shells, mingled with larger pieces of oyster, 

 clam, conch, and other recent shells, now common 

 along the beach. The thickness of this shell deposit 

 could not be determined. Over it is a foot (eight to 

 fourteen inches) of a reddish, sandy loam. This is 



