ON COMMON INDIAN SNAKES. 95 



can do so with comparative ease even on a vertical plane, especially 

 if the surface is a little rough. Thus I have many times witnessed it 

 climb up the perpendicular wooden faces of its box, the boards being 

 louf^h from the saw. It clambers with ease, throwing itself into an 

 S shape, and appearing to balance itself on its tail. As one watches 

 this performance one wonders at the support derived from the tail 

 expecting every moment to seethe snake fall, but no! the caudal 

 extremity resting on the horizontal surface grows less and less, and 

 finally follows the rest of the snake which adheres vertically wholly 

 unsupported. Now some observers would have us believe that the 

 force which operates in this acrobatic performance, is brought about 

 by a muscular effort on the part of the snake which retracts its ab- 

 domen in such a way as to create a vacuum in its body-length opposed 

 to the surface it is climbing. This, as in the case of an india-rubber 

 cup which has been pressed to exhaust the air, adheres mechanically 

 by the production of a vacuum, I happen on more than one occasion 

 to have seen Lycodon aulicus moving up the glass face of its cage, 

 it can do so in a wonderful manner till nearly all the body-length has 

 left the floor, but though I have specially looked for it I have never 

 been able to see the slightest indication of the muscular action 

 referred to above, but have noticed that the wliole surface of the 

 abdomen lay pressed against the glass. I have never seen the snake 

 succeed in scaling a face of glass except in the case of two hatch- 

 lings that I put into spirit. To my amazement I found one of these 

 still wet from its immersion lying along the face of the jar above the 

 level of the fluid, and here it maintained a firm attachment, so firm 

 indeed that it almost supported the second one in its endeavours, to 

 reach a similar position, and escape its fate. In this case also I 

 specially noted that there was no attempt at any retraction of the 

 abdomen. The jar in which this scene was exacted is some 5 inches 

 in diameter, so that the curvature of the glass can have been little 

 assistance to a creature little over 7 inches in length. The wolf- 

 snake appears to me to climb by the aid of its ribs, and the free 

 borders of its belly shields, and with these alone. Mr. Sinclair in this 

 •Journal (Vol. IV, p. 310) remarked upon one he saw scaling a chick 

 stretched vertically and lashed in position. He says ; " The snake 

 e>»idently climbed by hitching the edges of the ventral shields on to 

 those of the bamboo lattice of the blind, and not by winding his 



