Slow-Worms

[Anita Bensoussane]

I had a "Blytonian moment" a couple of days ago while doing some gardening. I was pulling up some long grass which had grown up against the fence when my eye was caught by something gleaming. It was a baby slow-worm, about as thick as a strand of spaghetti and slightly longer than my little finger. It was a lustrous grey-brown with a thin black stripe along its back and a silvery sheen to it and I immediately thought of Enid Blyton's descripion of the baby slow-worms in Philip's pocket in The Mountain of Adventure, wriggling about "like little silvery darning needles." That's a very apt description, since the shape of the head, the thin body and the tapering tail do indeed give the impression of a needle. I was thrilled to see it. We see fully-grown slow-worms in the garden several times a year, sometimes two at a time, but I'd never seen a baby one before.

Anita

[Belly]

How wonderful. I have to say I don't think I would know what a slow-worm looked like if I saw one, but thanks to your descriptions & Enid's I will look more carefully in my hedgerows from now on.

It is easy to forget how much Enid knew about animals, plants & birds, how much she loved them & what a keen eye she had. I realise her father taught her lots but I think there was a time when children knew much more about plants and wildlife that surrounded them? My mother in law (mid 70s) can tell her hazlenut bush (tree)? from her cherry and can name most birds telling the difference between them. Wasn't 'botany' once taught in schools that covered this sort of thing? I have girls story books from the 1950s that have botany competitions when the girls have to go out and find wild violets and paint them, etc. I expect botany was replaced with Biology or something?

A friend of mine thought he had spotted a rare bird in his garden recently. He photographed it and took it into work only to be laughed at as it was actually something like a chaffinch!

Here we still have poisonous snakes & people keep dogs if they have gardens to warn them. The dogs seem to go crazy if they see a snake. I wonder if there are any barguas? (Is there actaully such a snake)?

Thank you for the baby slow-worm description I really enjoyed it and I was interested to see how accurately Enid had described it.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think you're right, Belly, that Botany/Nature Study evolved into Biology.

I once Googled "bargua" but to no avail so I expect Enid Blyton made it up! Perhaps you should keep a nature journal while you're in Singapore, documenting snakes etc!

The first time I ever saw a slow-worm I was out in the garden having a picnic lunch with my daughter and son, who were then aged five and one. Hannah suddenly pointed to the swing and said, "Look, there's a snake under the swing." I wasn't entirely sure at the time whether it was a slow-worm or a grass snake but I did know it wasn't an adder, so that was okay! We watched, fascinated, as it wriggled across the lawn and into the flower-bed.

Another time I saw a magpie pecking at something in our garden and it turned out to be a slow-worm. The magpie flew off when I came out, carrying the slow-worm's tail in its beak. I remembered from reading Enid Blyton that slow-worms are able to shed their tails to escape from predators (they are of course legless lizards, not snakes) so I wasn't too alarmed! I gently lifted up the injured slow-worm and put it under a bush in the shade.

Last year we had a hole in our shed roof and we kept a plastic container in the shed to catch the water when it rained. One day I went to empty it (not having done so for a few days) and found three fully-grown slow-worms lying in the water. I thought at first that they had drowned, but when I fished them out they started moving. I put them down on the grass and they slowly began wriggling, eventually making their way towards the bushes. It was a hot, sunny day so perhaps they had gone into the water on purpose to cool off!

Anita