A few weeks ago, a Welsh lady, hearing me speak of my tame slow-worms, asked if I were not afraid to handle them.
‘Why?’ one naturally asked.
‘Because they are so poisonous,’ she replied.
I explained that this erroneous idea had probably originated in the little creature being sometimes called an ‘adder,’ and so forth.
My friend did not take the explanation kindly, but rather resented the possibility of her being mistaken. ‘They are so very common in Wales,’ she said, ‘and I am sure they are venomous there.’
Another lady of the company, subsequently speaking of this, remarked, ‘I should certainly be inclined to believe what Miss F. says about them (the slow-worms), because she lives so much in the country and is such an observer.’
This speaker was a lady of really superior intellectual attainments; but she had never attempted to overcome a strong prejudice against anything in the shape of a snake. She would not permit herself to be convinced that any of them were either harmless, clean, or beautiful; but, like the monks who would not look through Galileo’s telescope, for fear of seeing what it was heresy to believe, my friend preferred to hug her prejudices!
One little bit more of gossip in taking leave of Lizzie. The party were young gentlemen, all of them of studious and intellectual tastes and good position. ‘How could I endure to touch those horrible slimy snakes?’ one of them exclaimed, on hearing a lady inquire about my pets. I assured him they were as clean and dry as the ruler on the table. The young gentlemen exchanged dubious glances, and nearly all of them attributed to my undue partiality the assurance that they were not ‘slimy.’ ‘I always thought they were,—didn’t you?’ they said to each other.
A word must be added on the subject of skin-shedding in the slow-worms, various processes having been described; as that it is ‘always shed in pieces,’ ‘always splits on the head first,’ etc. As no two of my pets doffed their coats at regular periods, or precisely in the same manner, I judged that, as in snakes, the sloughing depended principally on the health of the individual, or the temperature. They all invariably began at the lips, rubbing their heads till the skin separated round the mouth exactly as snakes do, and then crawled out of it. In one case the skin was shed unreversed throughout the entire length. This was pushed off and left behind in a crumpled form, but in picking it up it extended uninjured to its original length, perfect from mouth to tail. Others were reversed as far as the tail, which slipped out ‘like a sword out of its scabbard,’ as described by Mr. Bell; others were reversed throughout the length. Sometimes they were in pieces, and this was, I think, attributable to insufficient moisture. One did not change after August; others changed several times during the summer; so that there appears to be the same sort of caprice, or more probably of unascertained causes for variable processes, in casting the cuticle as in snakes.
‘Lizzie’s’ bibulous propensities were mentioned p. 89. In vain was she tempted with milk, but water appeared to be almost more necessary than food; at least, after being deprived of both, she took that first and eagerly.