70 SNAKES. 



state of health or of habit, as the strong juices of the 

 stomach, which can convert even bones and horn to nutri- 

 ment, ordinarily dissolve an egg-shell. 



Throughout nature we find that, whatever the habits of 

 the creature may be, its structure and capacities are adapted 

 to it. Every need is, as it were, anticipated in the process 

 of development ; and wherever, as in this harmless little 

 tree snake, we find a departure from general rules, it is 

 because some especial requirements are met, and in order 

 that the creature may be the better prepared for the struggle 

 for existence. In the present example we find a marvellous 

 adaptation of spine bones to dental purposes ; how many 

 ages it has taken to develop them we cannot conjecture. 

 All we know is that these spinal projections are just the 

 sort of teeth that the egg-swallower requires, and that 

 its natural teeth are gradually becoming obsolete from 

 disuse. 



A writer who was quoted at some length in the Zoologist 

 for 1875, and in several other contemporary journals, stated 

 that some snakes ' suck out the contents of hen's eggs by 

 making a hole at the end.' ' 



We are not told with what instrument these evidently 

 scientific serpents punctured the shell. Some skill is required, 

 as schoolboys give us to understand, to prick an egg-shell 

 without breaking it ; and even when the hole is bored, 

 additional care is required to suck out the contents. How 

 a snake could first grasp firmly, and then puncture a fowl's 

 ^gg, is incomprehensible; how the sucking process is achieved 



^ Aa/ural Hisiory Notes from South Africa, by R. B. and J. D. S. Woodward. 

 Lend. 1874. 



