THE SMOOTH SHEATH-CLAW. 183 



I put the reptile into a gauze-covered box for ob- 

 servation. In less than a week the new tail was 

 manifest in the form of a bluish tubercle projecting 

 from the centre of the wound, the edges of which 

 had, in drying, shrunk up, and so lost their sharp- 

 ness. The tail slowly increased ; about the end of 

 October it was an inch long, the base nearly com- 

 mensurate in diameter with the wound. About this 

 time I captured one with a renewed tail, which 

 member ivas covered with tuberculous scales as the 

 original had been, and the inferior surface of which 

 displayed the ordinary transverse plates. la fact I 

 should not have known that it had been severed, but 

 for the dark grey colour, the peculiar character of the 

 striping, the manifest suture at the point of junction, 

 and the smaller size than normal of the scales and 

 plates. On comparing the tail of my own living one 

 with that of this specimen, I perceived that it diiFered 

 in the absence of scales, the surface being silky, and 

 covered with fine transverse wrinkles as the one ob- 

 served at Grand Vale. On the 10th of November 

 the new tail was about an inch and one-eighth long ; 

 when it threw off its skin, the sloughing being con- 

 fined] to the recent part ; and I was surprised and 

 pleased to observe that the new surface displayed both 

 scales and transverse plates, but both small. The 

 colour was still dark grey, with pale irregular longi- 

 tudinal stripes or dashes. About the beginning of 

 December the animal escaped, the cage having been 

 incautiously left open : the tail was then fully an 

 inch and a half long, and the tip had become 



