70 THE SNAKES OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
PyYTHON’s EGGs. 
In the wild state, when the female Python desires to lay her 
eggs, she selects some secluded spot amongst tangled brushwood 
down an Aard-vark hole, or in one of the innermost crevices of a 
rugged krantz. She lays her eggs in a heap, coils her body 
Fic. 32.—A South African Python about to swallow a Klip Dassie (Procavia capensis), 
which it has captured and constricted. (vom Warne’s Royal Natural History.) 
around them, fold above fold, with her head on top, completely 
concealing the eggs. During the incubation period, the snake’s 
temperature rises, which seems to be a provision of Nature for 
the hatching of the eggs. I am by no means sure whether the 
eggs would not hatch just as well, if laid in some warm, moist 
place, and left to incubate by themselves, as is the case with most 
other egg-laying snakes One reason which undoubtedly prompts 
