284 THE STUDY OF ANIMAL LIFE CHAP. 



among them clever climbers, swift swimmers, and power- 

 ful burro wers. Though they are all limbless, unless we 

 credit the little hind claws of some boas and pythons with 

 the title of legs, they flow like swift living streams along 

 the ground, using ribs and scales instead of their lost 

 appendages, pushing themselves forward with jerks so 

 rapid that the movement seems continuous. Without 

 something on which to raise themselves they must 

 remain at least half prostrate, but in the forest or on 

 rough ground there are no lither gymnasts. Their united 

 eyelids give them an unlimited power of staring, and, 

 according to uncritical observers, of fascination ; yet 

 most of them seem to see dimly and hear faintly, 

 trusting mainly for guidance to the touch of their restless 

 protrusible tongue and to their sense of smell. Their 

 only language is a hiss or a whine. Most sink into an 

 annual state of torpor, and all periodically cast off the 

 outermost layer of the epidermis, turning it inside-out 

 in a normally continuous slough. Almost all lay eggs, 

 but in a few cases (e.g. the adder) the young are hatched 

 within the mothers, and this mode of birth may be 

 induced by artificial conditions. Think net meanly of 

 the serpent, ' it is the very omnipotence of the earth. 

 That rivulet of smooth silver how does it flow, think 

 you ? It literally rows on the earth with every scale 

 for an oar ; it bites the dust with the ridges of its body. 

 Watch it when it moves slowly a wave, but without 

 wind ! a current, but with no fall ! all the body moving 

 at the same instant, yet seme of it to one side, some to 

 another, or some forward, and the rest of the coil back- 

 wards ; but all with the same calm will and equal Avay- 

 no contraction, no extension ; one soundless, causeless 

 march of sequent rings, and spectral procession of spotted 

 dust, with dissolution in its fangs, dislocation in its coils. 

 Startle it the winding stream will become a twisted 

 arrow ; the wave of poisoned life will lash through the 

 grass like a cast lance. It scarcely breathes with its 

 one lung (the other shrivelled and abortive); it is passive 

 to the sun and shade, and cold or 'hot like a stone ; yet 

 4 it can outclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap 



