LETTEES FROM ALABAMA. 
75 
change was complete. I suppose the black colour 
was not caused by the animal’s being on the dark 
logs, but was the effect of anger on being chased. 
When irritated, and also during other seasons of 
excitement, the skin of the throat is thrust forth, by 
a peculiar mechanism, to a great extent ; this part 
then becomes of a bright crimson. The scales with 
which this lizard is clothed are very small, and 
scarcely observable. It is perfectly harmless, and 
is an elegant little creature, of very graceful and 
active motions, running and leaping. 
There are in this neighbourhood many prairies,— 
not the boundless prairies of the West, resembling 
an ocean solidified and changed to land, but little 
ones, varying in extent from an acre to a square 
mile. They are generally so well defined, that the 
woods environ them on every side like an abrupt 
wall, and one can hardly be persuaded that these 
prairies are not clearings made with the axe of the 
settler. The soil is a very tough and hard clay, 
and in wet weather the roads running through them 
are almost impassable, so adhesive are they to the 
feet of the passengers and the wheels of carriages. 
Multitudes of fossil shells are scattered over and 
imbedded in these prairies, but I know nothing of 
their characters or names. They' are perfectly free 
from the least fragment of stone : I have searched 
over them in vain for a pebble large enough to 
throw at a bird. Several species of Thorn ( Cra- 
tcEgus) grow in impenetrable thickets or in single 
bushes over their surface, and one or two kinds of 
wild plum, bearing a harsh sour sloe or bullace, 
are often mixed with them. 
The plants growing on the prairie seem peculiar 
to it; the flowers abounding on it occur nowhere 
