HIBERNA TION. 1 6 7 



hundred slow worms and as many small lizards, all in a 

 torpid state. It v/as during February. 



At the end of September more recently, a farmer in 

 Wales, who with his labourers was removing a heap of 

 manure, came upon an extraordinary bed of snakes and 

 slow worms, and no less than 352 were killed, together 

 with an enormous quantity of eggs ; ' thousands in clusters 

 were destroyed.' 'Three of the snakes were of immense 

 size, and one hundred of them nine to twelve inches long.' 

 These latter were probably slow worms, and the three 

 'immense' ones ring snakes. One feels curious to know 

 whether judgment for this act of wanton cruelty visited 

 that farmer in a destruction of his crops next year by the 

 mice and insects from which these harmless reptiles would 

 have saved them ! 



The general reptilian instincts are the same in all climates 

 where the temperature is similar. In Australia, as Krefft 

 tells us, this is a grand time among schoolboys for 'snake- 

 hunting.' They lay traps of large flat stones on open sunny 

 ridges where the reptiles are likely to resort. Six to ten 

 specimens of different species are often taken under one 

 such stone. Even the venomous kinds may be easily cap- 

 tured and transferred to a bag In their half-dormant con- 

 dition. Sometimes in lifting a stone, a dozen or more 

 handsome and beautiful lizards are found among their 

 ophidian cousins. The Wallaby hunters generally provide 

 themselves with a collecting-bag, and thousands of snakes 

 have thus been transferred to museums. So expert do 

 the hunters become, that in eight years, the same author 

 affirms, not one accident has occurred from a venomous 



