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 Odder still are the geckos, which have their toes swollen out at the tips into round sucker-like pads, by means of which they can climb a wall or a pane of glass with the greatest ease, or even walk about like flies on the ceiling. They are very fond of getting into houses, generally remaining hidden in some dark corner during the day, but coming out toward evening to search for insects, and continually uttering their curious little cry of "geck-geck-geck-o." People used to be very much afraid of geckos, some thinking that they could squirt out poison from the pads of their toes which would act like the sting of a nettle, and others declaring that their teeth were so sharp and strong that they could pierce even a sheet of steel! But the real fact is that these lizards are perfectly harmless, and cannot injure any living creature except the insects upon which they feed. When they take up their quarters in a house they soon become extremely tame, and will even climb up on the dinner-table to be fed.