6o SNAKES. 



Many snakes which do not habitually live in trees, will 

 climb them in search of birds' eggs ; and many others, not 

 so agile in climbing, consume vast numbers of eggs from the 

 nests of birds which build upon the ground. In countries 

 where snakes are numerous and population sparse, their 

 depredations in the poultry-yards of secluded residences 

 are of common occurrence. And it is a noteworthy fact 

 that the crawling culprits possess an excellent memory for 

 the localities of hens' nests, so that when once the eggs 

 have been missing, and the snake's tracks discovered, the 

 farm-hands well know that the offence will be repeated, 

 and watch for the thief, to whom no mercy is shown. 

 But between their virtues as mousers and their vices as 

 egg-thieves, an American farmer does sometimes hesitate in 

 destroying certain non-venomous snakes, and may occasion- 

 ally feel disposed to save his crops, to the sacrifice of his 

 wife's poultry-yard. 



A gentleman, long a resident in India, informed me that 

 a cobra once got through a chink into his hen-house, and 

 ate so many eggs from under a sitting hen, that it could 

 not effect its exit through the same chink, and so remained 

 half in and half out, where the next morning it was dis- 

 covered in a very surfeited condition. It was immediately 

 killed and cut open, when, as the eggs were found to be 

 unbroken and still warm, the experiment was tried of 

 replacing them under the mother, who in due time hatched 

 the brood none the worse for this singular ' departure ' in 

 their process of incubation. 



In another poultry-yard a cobra was found coiled in a 

 hen's nest, from which all the eggs were gone but two. In 



