DO SNAKES DRINK 1 89 



ciently established. Modern authorities now affirm it 

 decidedly. Says Dr. Giinther in his great work, published 

 by the Ray Society ,1 ' All snakes drink, and die when 

 deprived of water.' Dr. Edward Nicholson, another of 

 our practical ophiologists, speaking of one of his pet 

 snakes, a TropidonoUts, says ' the offer of a drink of water 

 will at once gain its heart.' In watching snakes drinking, 

 he has frequently counted one hundred gulps before the 

 drinker is satisfied.- If Anguis fragilis, the common blind- 

 worm, from its snake-like form, may be cited here, I ma}- 

 mention one of my own, which, after being shut up in a 

 box for safety during my absence from home for some days, 

 drank for such a long while when first released from cap- 

 tivity, that I was really tired of waiting to watch her. She 

 almost immediately went to a flower-pot saucer of water, with 

 which she was familiar, and which I placed near her. For 

 some time I watched the tongue thrown out and withdrawn, 

 till I began to wonder how much longer she would remain 

 dipping that little bifid organ. I then began to count, and 

 she dipped it seventy-five times more, after drinking at least 

 as long as that previously. Then she moved away, and ex- 

 plored among the books on the table, but soon returned to 

 the saucer and dipped her tongue again upwards of seventy 

 times. How much more I cannot affirm, as I could not 

 remain any longer waiting for her, and left her still drinking. 

 (' Lizzie,' thus named from her lizard nature, must claim 

 a chapter to herself in this book, for she greatly distinguished 

 herself in laccrtine doings.) 



1 Reptiles of British India, by Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S. London, 1864. 



2 Indian Snakes, by E. Nicholson, Madras Army. Madras, 1870. 



