432 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
On tail-less Lizards. 
To the Editor of the Naturalist. 
Dear Sir, —I observe in your last number (p. 196), under the head “ Notes 
on British Reptiles,” a remark concerning the curious occurrence of the Nimble 
Lizard being found without its tail. I have frequently seen them, similarly- 
circumstanced, in the vicinity of old stone walls and rotten fences. In the month 
of July I formed an acquaintance with one, which I saw basking every sunny 
morning upon a hillock. So tame and gentle was it, that I frequently touched 
its back and head with a stalk of Grass. At length I missed my pet for a 
fortnight, when, to my surprise, I saw him, or a deputy, basking upon the 
favourite spot, minus his caudal extremity, and accompanied by a comrade, 
which was likewise imperfect. At a loss to account for their deprivation, I 
supposed an accident had been the cause; but in one of my rambles over our 
Chalk-hills, I found the shed skin of a Lizard, and no part of the tail adhering 
to it, I think it is matter for conjecture, whether the tails do not drop off when 
the skin is shed, and the animals are furnished with others in due time. The 
general loss of tails in the species at a certain period seems to strengthen this 
supposition. 
On the Fracture on Rocks by Blasting. 
In blasting our rocks in the Iguanodon Quarry, I have been struck with the 
similarity of the fracture caused by the explosion; and, from its being almost 
invariably the same, could not help supposing that some law of Nature produced 
the result. The fractures are three, and of the following form :— 
As our stone contains a very large proportion of Lime, and the crystals being 
rhomboids, I think the figure must be owing to the fracture being led into the 
lines of the crystals, and we find the same figure produced in this drawing 
(Fig. 2), as in the other, supposing an expansive force situated in the centre 
