340 Animal Life 
snaps completely off, and, what is more curious still, the severed fragment remains 
twisting and wriggling about in the grass for quite ten minutes after the fracture. 
It has been suggested that this habit serves as a protection, the blind worm itself 
escaping while the attention of the assailant is taken up by the strange movements 
of the tail; but this appears rather a doubtful explanation of the phenomenon. ‘The 
creature, anyhow, is not injured by the operation, for the wound soon heals, and in 
the course of a few months another tail is produced. The true explanation seems to 
be that the blind worm, on being unexpectedly handled, becomes perfectly rigid with 
fear, and in that condition is easily broken, for the muscles that connect the vertebree 
of the tail are very loosely attached, being arranged in four groups of two on each 
vertebra, so that, when the body is suddenly stiffened, they contract and the joint snaps. 
No one would guess that so humble a creature as the blind worm could be the 
cause of a really important scientific discovery, and yet such is the case. here 
exists in the human brain a small organ, about the size of a hazel nut, which, from 
being something the shape of a fir-cone, is known as the pineal gland. Until quite 
recent times the purpose of this organ was a complete mystery, no more reasonable 
solution of the difficulty having been suggested than that of Descartes, who said that 
it was perhaps the seat of the soul. A German named Ahlborn, however, in the year 
1884, pointed out that a similar gland was to be found in the head of a blind worm, 
and suggested that it was a rudimentary eye. The suggestion thus given was followed 
out, and another German, of the name of De Graaf, reached a still more curious 
conclusion. The eyes of vertebrate and invertebrate creatures are formed on quite 
different principles, and the strange discovery was made that the pineal gland is really 
a rudimentary eye of the invertebrate type. So the blind worm, so far from being 
blind, possesses two lateral eyes, formed on the vertebrate principle, and one eye in 
the centre of its forehead which is not, indeed, in a functional condition, but is of 
totally different structure from the others, being lke those seen in invertebrate creatures. 
The discovery is very interesting as bearing upon theories of the progress and 
development of species, for though the pineal eye is not of practical use to any known 
creature, it was undoubtedly so in the case of the fossil Labyrintho-donts, the skulls 
of which have a well-marked orifice for the passage of the pineal nerve. ‘Thus the 
hated and despised blind worm has won its way to a niche in the Temple of Science. 
There are few parts of the country in which blind worms do not occur more or 
less numerously, so that those who are interested in Natural History have plenty of 
opportunities of observing their habits. With observation will come knowledge, and it 
is to be hoped that by degrees ignorance may be dispelled and this harmless and 
useful little creature be spared the foolish persecution to which it is now subjected. 
THE BLIND WORM’'S FAVOURITE HAUNT. 
