3868 Notices of New Books. 



great rapidity. The facility with which the tail separates has been 

 already alluded to ; it is said that the animal will frequently cast off 

 this member spontaneously in its contortions on being put alive into 

 spirits ; and that the contraction of the tail into a globular form has 

 given occasion to the supposition that a distinct species existed, called 

 the turnip-tailed gecko, (Thecadactylus rapicauda) ; this, however, I 

 have not seen. 



" One day, at Grand Vale, I observed on a gate a gecko with a new 

 tail, not more than an inch and a half in length, abruptly tapered. 

 The animal had a singular appearance, the tail being of a bluish gray 

 hue, marked with longitudinal black stripes; it had a silky gloss; 

 but was closely covered with minute transverse wrinkles. (The ordi- 

 nary length of the tail when perfect is about five inches). 



" About the middle of September I caught in a noose one which I 

 had deprived of its tail a few days before in attempting to secure it. 

 The separation had taken place about half an inch behind the vent. 

 I put the reptile into a gauze- covered box for observation. In less 

 than a week the new tail was manifest in the form of a bluish tuber- 

 cle projecting from the centre of the wound. About this time I 

 captured one with a renewed tail, which member was covered with 

 tuberculous scales as the original had been, and the inferior surface 

 of which displayed the ordinary transverse plates. 



" In fact I should not have known it had been severed but for the 

 dark gray 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 differed in the absence of 

 scales, the surface being silky and covered with fine transverse wrin- 

 kles as the one observed at Grand Vale. On the 10th of November 

 the tail was about an inch and one-eighth long, when it threw off its 

 skin, the sloughing being confined 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 gray, with pale irregular longitudinal stripes or dashes. About 

 the beginning of December the animal escaped, the cage having in- 

 cautiously been left open ; the tail was then fully an inch and a half 

 long, and the tip had become compressed. 



" On the 21st of October I had found, adhering to the inside of the 

 door of the cage, an egg of a short oval form, shelly in texture, and 

 of a pure white hue. It adhered to the wood by a flattened base, as 

 if it had been deposited in a soft state ; when I saw it the top had 



