Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/144

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
136
SAURIA.—SCINCIDÆ.

That its muscular powers are great, there is no doubt, and that its blunt teeth would painfully bruise the flesh, and produce an injury perhaps more difficult to be healed than even a lacerated

GALLY-WASP.

wound, is not improbable. With all our inquiries made in the island, we have never been able to trace any direct accounts of serious mischief done by this animal; and those which seemed most circumstantial of second-hand narratives are such as in a great degree may be accounted for by the imagination,—the fears of the patient, in the case of a bite, being very highly excited. The creature is acknowledged, however, to be inoffensive, biting only in self-defence, when accidentally trodden on, or attacked.