Two or three small kinds are to be found in the south of England, one of which is curious as representing a tribe, largely represented in other parts of the world, of legless burrowing lizards, which look much like little snakes, for none of them are more than ten or twelve inches long, while they are of the thickness of a lead-pencil. They look so shiny and serpent-like that many people are afraid of them.
But the blindworm, or slowworm, as this creature is called, is perfectly harmless. It cannot bite you, for its teeth are far too tiny to pierce the skin; and it cannot sting you, because it has no sting. There is its odd little forked tongue, of course, which is always darting in and out of its mouth, just like that of a snake. But this tongue is only a feeler. Whenever a blindworm comes to an object it does not quite understand, it touches it gently all over with the tip of its tongue, just as we might touch it with the tips of our fingers.
Notwithstanding its name, the blindworm has a pair of very good, though rather small, beady black eyes; and, of course, it is not a worm.
During the daytime the blindworm mostly lies hidden under a large stone; and on turning such a stone over, one may sometimes find two or three of these lizards all coiled up together. But in the evening they leave their hiding-places, and go out to search for the tiny white slugs on which they feed.
When it is suddenly startled the blindworm sometimes behaves in a very odd way. It stiffens its body, gives a kind of shudder and a twist, and actually snaps off its own tail! Then the tail begins to writhe about on the ground, wriggling and curling and even leaping up into the air in the most curious manner; and while you are watching its antics, the blindworm creeps away into some place of safety. You would think that it must suffer a great deal of pain from this extraordinary injury, wouldn't you, and that the blindworm would feel it quite as much as a man would feel if his leg were cut off? But it does not seem to suffer at all; and stranger still, a new tail very soon begins to grow in the place of the old one, so that in the course of a very few weeks the lizard is just as perfect as it was before!
Skinks
These are queer little lizards with four short legs and very stumpy tails, which are found in many parts of Africa and Asia. They live in sandy deserts, and are rather slow in their movements as a rule. But if a fly should settle anywhere near them they will dart upon it with the most surprising quickness, and will hardly ever fail to capture it. And if they are alarmed they will burrow into the sand so rapidly that they really seem to sink into it just as if it were water. In a very few seconds, indeed, they will bury themselves to a depth of at least two or three feet.
In olden days skinks were very much used in medicine, and the powder obtained from their dried bodies was thought to be a certain cure for many diseases! It does not seem a very nice idea, yet even to this day skinks are used for the same purpose in Eastern countries.
There are several different kinds of these curious lizards, of which the common skink, found in Northern Africa, is the best known. It is about three inches and a half in length, and is yellowish brown in color, with a number of darker bands on the sides of the body.
Geckos