LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
215 
is evident that the increase must take place at some 
time or other, and it seems to me more likely to occur 
at the sloughing of the skin, that is, annually, than 
either oftener or seldomer. I may remark of the 
specimen which I killed, that its colour was pur- 
plish brown, marked with a red-brown streak down 
the back, and somewhat irregular bands of black ; 
the tail was black, and an inch and a half in length, 
exclusive of the rattles : the total length was about 
twenty inches. 
A Lizard of a bluish, colour puzzled me not a 
little, owing to its tail not being more than an inch 
in length : I should have supposed that it had 
been broken off, an accident to which these reptiles 
are very liable, but that, short as it was, it tapered 
to a point. The creature was crawling about the 
logs of the house, and was very wary, so that I 
could not examine it ; it was much like the kind 
vulgarly called Scorpion [Agama undulata)^ but 
seemed somewhat thicker. An observation, how- 
ever, of Dr. Harlan’s, in the “ Journal of the Aca- 
demy of Natural Sciences,” threw light on the 
matter: it was to the effect that the Skinks, a 
family of lizards, have the power of reproducing the 
tail, when it has been accidentally broken off, and 
that the new tail is of a blue colour. The tail of 
the one under notice w^as undoubtedly in the pro- 
cess of reproduction, and perhaps the wariness of 
the animal might have been induced by the expe- 
rience of injury, arid consequent suffering.'*^ 
The chief enemies of the lizard tribes are the 
* Since this observation was recorded, I have had many op- 
portunities of noticing phenomena analogous to the above : the 
power of renewing the tail is common to most, if not all, Saurian 
Reptiles. 
