“No,” said the grass-snake. “A bird makes a nest for her eggs because she has to sit on them, and she wants a nice, comfortable place to sit in. Now I don’t sit on my eggs, for that is not at all necessary. I just find a nice, warm, moist place for them, and when I have laid them there, I go away and leave them. I have no time to sit on them like a bird. I am much too busy.”
“But how are your eggs ever hatched?” said Tommy Smith.
“Oh,” said the grass-snake, “I am so clever that I know the heat of the place where they lie will be enough to hatch them. So when they are once safely laid, I don’t bother about them any more.”
“Yes,” said Tommy Smith; “but if you go away, who is there to look after the young snakes when they come out of the egg?”
“They look after themselves,” said the grass-snake. “Birds are like little boys and girls. They are great babies, and want someone to take care of them whilst they are young. But we snakes are so clever that as soon as we come into the world we can take care of ourselves, and don’t want anyone to help us.”
“I should like to see some of your eggs,” said Tommy Smith. “What are they like?”
“They are white,” said the grass-snake, “and they are joined together in a long string, sometimes as many as sixteen or even twenty. So you may think how beautiful they look, like a necklace of very large pearls. Only they are not hard like pearls. Their shell is soft, and not at all like the shell of a bird’s egg.”
“I should like to see them,” said Tommy Smith.
“Well,” said the grass-snake, “you must look about in manure-heaps, and then, perhaps, you will find some. That is the sort of place that I like to lay them in.”
Tommy Smith thought that this was another nasty habit of the grass-snake, but he didn’t like to say so, because he had said it twice before; so, after a little while, he said, “And do you really like being a snake, Mr. Grass-Snake?” You see he had to say something, and he didn’t quite know what to say.