Perhaps the pleasantest portion of snake-keeping was the feeding. It was found that the snakes lost their appetite, and would not eat, though frogs and newts were liberally supplied. So the boys settled the matter by opening the mouth of the snake, and pushing a newt fairly down its throat.
One of the largest snakes that I have seen was engaged in feeding himself, not trusting to boys for any help. I was walking in a field, and heard a strange cry from a neighbouring ditch. On going towards the spot, I saw there a large snake struggling with a frog. The frog was comparatively as large as the snake, and as it had a plain objection to being swallowed, there was some turmoil.
The snake was stretched along the bottom of the ditch, which at this time was dry, and he held in his mouth both hind feet of the frog, who was also stretched forward at full length, resisting with its fore-legs the attempts of the snake to draw it back, and croaking dismally. The strife continued for some time, when I made a sudden movement, and the snake, loosing its hold of the frog, glided up the opposite bank. The frog slowly gathered itself together, sat still for some little time, and then hopped away.
The entire empty skin of the snake may often be found among bushes, where the creature has gone in order to assist itself in casting off its old skin. Snakes, as well as other animals, wear out their coats, and are obliged to change them for others. When the change is about to take place, and a new coat has formed under the old, like a new skin under a blister, the creature betakes itself to some spot where is thick grass, reeds, or similar substances. A rent then opens in the neck, and the snake, by wriggling about among the stems, literally crawls out of its skin, which it leaves behind, turned inside out. Even the covering of the eyes is cast away, and in consequence the snake is partially blind for a day or two previously to the moult, if we may call it so.
Eggs laid by the snake are also of frequent occurrence. I have found them in manure heaps, the warmth of which places is attractive to them. The eggs are white, and covered with a strong membrane, but have no shell. They are laid in long strings, from sixteen to twenty eggs being in each chain.
In the winter the ringed snake retires to a convenient cell, such as a hollow tree, or a heap of wood, and there it remains in a torpid state until the warm weather. Many individuals have been found collected together in these winter quarters, probably for the sake of affording each other mutual warmth.
The reptiles of which we have just treated live exclusively on land, though they may occasionally be found in water; but those which we shall now inspect belong rather to the water than to the land. The most common of these amphibious reptiles, as they are called, is the Frog.
A very curious animal is a frog, and well worth examining, as well in its perfect state as in its intermediate state. To begin at the beginning of a frog’s existence, we find it exhibited in masses of eggs, fixed to each other by a kind of gelatinous substance, and floating in large quantities in ditches or ponds. Each egg is about the size and shape of a pea, and in the centre is the little black speck from which the young frog proceeds.
FROG.