100 ON THE PUYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 



rishment ; sometimes they have been still longer before 

 dying of starvation.* 



We are ignorant whether serpents drink, and it is pro- 

 bable they do not, no fluid having been found in the sto- 

 machs of these animals on dissection. 



The continual changes of our atmosphere operate more 

 or less powerfully on sei-pents. Fond of heat, they eagerly 

 search for places exposed to the rays of the sun, whilst they 

 remain concealed during rain, or in windy weather : at the 

 approach of a storm, when the atmosphere is charged with 

 electricity, they are often seen to leave their retreats, in a 

 state of agitation not natural to their kind, and to pass over 

 open places. Unable to support the effects of cold, which, 

 at the same time, deprives them of food, serpents retire on 

 the approach of winter into retreats, most fre((uently subter- 

 raneous, and always secured against the inclemejicies of the 

 weather ; these are sometimes in burrows, or in heaps of 

 stones, sometimes in dunghills, or in the hollow of a tree. 

 In such situations, many are often found together in the 

 same place of retreat, in a profound torpor, until the 

 vivifying rays of the sun reanimate them in the spring. 

 It is obvious that the duration of this periodic sleep should 

 be longer or shorter according to the climate which the 

 serpents inhabit ; and that in a region in which there reigns 

 a peri^etual spring, these reptiles are not liable to pass a 

 certain time in this torpor. The researches of travellers 

 have shewn that this is a fact ; but there are some exceptions 

 to that law, which leads to the supposition, that defect of 

 food is the cause of this torpor. M. Von Humboldt f states, 

 on the information of the natives, that the Boa murina, dur- 

 ing the long rains that inundate the immense deserts of 

 South America, remains buried in the argillaceous soil, 

 until the mud, dried by the heats W'hich immediately suc- 

 ceed the rainy season, cracks to let out the monstrous rep- 

 tile from the tomb which inclosed it. In Surinam, Brazil, 

 and other districts of South America, inhabited by this boa, 



* [The translator knew of two rattlesnakes living 18 months without 

 swallowing any food.] 

 t Ansichten, 1. p. 35. 



