42 OUR REPTILES. 



instance, in its food ; for, although it is not at 

 first disposed to eat in confinement, it becomes 

 at length more sociable, and will then eat 

 earthworms as freely as slugs. 



Of all the guiltless beings which are met 

 with, we have none less chargeable with crimi- 

 nality than the poor Slow-worm; yet none are 

 more frequently destroyed than it, included, as 

 it is, in the general and deep-rooted prejudice 

 attached to the serpent race. The viper and 

 snake, though they experience no mercy, escape 

 often by activity of action; but this creature, 

 from the slowness of its movements, falls a more 

 ready victim. We call it a ' blindworm/ pos- 

 sibly from the supposition that, as it makes little 

 effort to escape, it sees badly ; but its eyes^ 

 though rather small, are clear and lively, with 

 no apparent defect of vision. The natural 

 habits of the Slow- worm are obscure; and 

 living in the deepest foliage and the roughest 

 banks, he is generally secreted from observa- 

 tion; but loving warmth, like all his race, he 

 creeps, half torpid, from his hole, to bask in 

 spring-time in the rays of the sun, and is, if 

 seen, inevitably destroyed. Exquisitely formed 

 as all these gliding creatures are, for rapid and 

 uninterrupted transit through herbage and such 

 impediments, it is yet impossible to examine a 

 Slow- worm without admiration at the peculiar 



