Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/202

194 went in a boat to some distance up a large river, she threw the Snake into the water, imagining that its fidelity would lead it to follow her, and that, by swimming, it would readily overtake the boat. The poor animal exerted all its efforts; but the current proving at that juncture unusually strong, owing to the advance of the tide, in spite of all its struggling it was borne down the stream, and was unfortunately drowned.

Like all other Serpents, the Snakes shed the outer layer of the skin at irregular periods, dependent on the state of the animal’s health, on its abundance of food, on the temperature of the weather, and other circumstances. Sometimes the sloughing takes place four or five times a year. It appears that the skin is always reversed in the process, and is first split behind the head, when it is detached by the animal’s drawing itself through narrow apertures. White of Selborne thus describes the cast skin. “About the middle of this month (September), we found in a field, near a hedge, the slough of a large Snake, which seemed to have been newly cast. It appeared as if turned wrong side outward, and as if it had been drawn off backward, like a stocking or a woman's glove. Not only the whole skin, but even the scales from the eyes, were pulled off, and appeared in the head of the slough like a pair of spectacles. The reptile at the time of changing his coat, had entangled himself intricately in the grass and weeds, in order that the friction of the stalks and blades might promote this curious shifting of his exuviæ.

“It would be a most entertaining sight, could a person be an eye-witness to such a feat, and see