OCCASIONAL NOTES. 409 
attire on July 16th, and eighteen days afterwards—viz. August 4th—she 
had another new dress, both the discarded ones being reversed and almost 
entire. The head-shields do not appear to be renewed at each sloughing, 
nor are the tail-scales always doffed at the time, but come off in whorls by 
slow degrees, the tip last. One Green Lizard had a new coat for only his 
tail early in May—a postponement, no doubt, of the completion of his last 
year’s attire. In each case the sloughing has occurred when the Lizards - 
‘ have been exposed to the full sunshine; and it would be interesting to 
know if these frequent changes are a sign of health or the contrary, and - 
whether the sloughing is dependent on the temperature and condition of 
the animal. ‘They all feed poorly, being capricious in their tastes, and not 
approving their London diet. When, through the benevolence of some 
suburban friend, a supply of fresh garden insects can be presented to them, 
on these they pounce with gusto.” The most remarkable circumstance in 
connection with the changes observed is the frequency with which the 
cuticle is cast; for it would hardly be supposed that the new skin would be 
in a condition to be again shed in less than a month from the previous 
casting. Yet such appears to be the fact—J. E. Hartine. 
SpreaD or DiskasE By THE AGENCY oF HKartHworms.—Recent 
researches by M. Pasteur appear to throw considerable light on the origin of 
anthrax, or splenic fever, and allied diseases, which attack cattle, sheep, &c. 
When an animal dies of anthrax it is not uncommonly buried on the spot. 
The conditions of putrefaction prove fatal to the small parasitic organism, 
or bacteridium, which is abundant in the blood at death. The gas given off 
causes it to break up into dead and harmless granulations. But before 
this can occur not a little of the blood and humours of the body has 
eseaped into the ground about the carcase, and here the parasite is in an 
- aerated medium favourable to the formation of germs. These corpuscular 
germs M. Pasteur has found in the soil, in a state of latent life, months 
and years after the carcase was buried, and by inoculation of guinea-pigs 
with them has produced anthrax and death. Now it is specially notable 
that such germs have been met with in the earth at the surface above the 
place of burial, as well as near the body. The question arises, How came 
they there? And it would appear that earthworms are the agents of 
conveyance. In the small earth-cylinders of fine particles which these 
creatures bring to the surface and deposit after the dews of morning or 
after rain, one finds, besides a host of other germs, the germs of anthrax. 
The same process was proved also by direct experiment. Worms kept in 
ground with which bacteridium spores had been mixed were killed after 
a few days, and many of the spores were found in the earth-cylinders in 
their intestines. ‘The dust of this earth, after the cylinder, having been 
3G 
