A LEGLESS LIZARD. 125 



received their last unction before departing into the 

 great unknown ? Now the wild grape clambers o'er 

 the roof. Chamseleons and blue-tailed skinks hide 

 in the crannies between the logs. Cockroaches and 

 centipedes crawl and creep beneath the beams which 

 supported the floor. Here, in the midst of the pine 

 woods, unf enced and unnoticed, the cabin stands. It 

 was once a home to some contented soul, but now only 

 the creeping, crawling creatures which I have noted 

 make of it a temporary abiding place. Perchance, in 

 time of storm, a hoot owl finds shelter beneath its roof 

 and mocks the ghostly voices of its departed human 

 occupants. 



On arriving home I confer with my books, and am 

 surprised to find that my chief capture of the day is 

 neither a snake nor a worm, but a legless lizard, Rhin- 

 eura floridana Baird. 

 It is known only from 

 Florida, having been 

 described in 1858 from 

 a specimen taken at 

 Micanopy. It is called 

 by the natives the ' 

 "blind wor in," or Fig . 33. 



"blind Snake," and is 



-. Jl (Top and side riews of head nd top viaw of tail, 



exhumed. by per- showing traverse rows of tubercles.) 



sons digging or grub- 



bing in the gardens or plowing in the orange groves. 



Boulenger, in his "Catalogue of Lizards in the Brit- 



