The hibernating season is spent in holes in walls or at the root of trees, often under manure-heaps, and the awakening occurs in March or April, soon to be followed by the first exuviation and the pairing.
Reproduction.—Pairing takes place in April or in May, according to the climate, and the eggs are laid between June and August, the young emerging six to ten weeks later. It is probable that a second pairing occasionally takes place in the autumn, as eggs have sometimes been found in manure-heaps at the end of winter. Females do not breed until about 2 feet long, males a little sooner. The eggs number 11 to 48, according to the size of the female, and, after being produced in a string, stick together in a mass, without any regularity.
The eggs measure 1 to 11⁄2 inches in length, and when newly laid are about once and a half as long as broad. They often contain at the time they are produced a more or less developed embryo. They are sometimes laid in recesses in walls, in heaps of sawdust near sawmills, under dead leaves, but preferably in manure, for which purpose females often approach farms during the period of oviposition. Holes near baking ovens at the back of village houses are sometimes selected as breeding resorts. The female rolls herself up, and by violent contortions makes a sort of chamber in the manure, in which she may remain for some days after the eggs have been produced. It is not very unusual for several females to congregate for the purpose of laying, and as many as 1,200 eggs have been found in the same hole. The young on emerging has lost the umbilical cord, and measures 6 to 81⁄2 inches. It often remains for a considerable time, sometimes until the following spring, in the hole or manure-heap in which it was born, feeding principally on worms. Very young specimens are never found in the water.
4. Tropidonotus tessellatus, Laurenti
(Coluber hydrus, Pallas)
The Tessellated Water-Snake
Form.—Rather slender; head rather long and narrow; snout obtuse, not prominent; eyes and nostrils directed upwards and outwards, the former rather small, the latter somewhat valvular. Tail four to six times in the total length.
TROPIDONOTUS TESSELLATUS
TROPIDONOTUS VIPERINUS
After Sordelli