THE SMOOTH SHEATH-CLAW. 
183 
I put the reptile into a gauze-covered box for ob- 
servation. In less than a week the new tail was 
manifest in the form of a bluish tubercle projecting 
from the centre of the wound, the edges of which 
had, in drying, shrunk up, and so lost their sharp- 
ness. The tail slowly increased ; about the end oT 
October it was an inch long, the base nearly com- 
mensurate in diameter with 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 that it had been severed, but 
for the dark grey 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 wrinkles as the one ob- 
served at Grand Vale. On the 10th of November 
the new tail was about an inch and one-eighth long ; 
when it threw off its skin, the sloughing being con- 
finedUo 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 grey, with pale irregular longi- 
tudinal stripes or dashes. About the beginning of 
December the animal escaped, the cage having been 
incautiously left open: the tail was then fully an 
inch and a half long, and the tip had become 
compressed. 
