OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 417 
worms ; while the shelled snail, the epeouxos, does not come forth at all 
till about April roth, and not only lays itself up pretty early in autumn, 
in places secure from frost, but also throws out round the mouth of 
its shell athick operculum formed from its own saliva ; so that it is 
perfectly secured, and corked up as it were, from all inclemencies. 
The cause why the slugs are able to endure the cold so much better 
than shell-snails is, that their bodies are covered with slime as 
whales are with blubber. 
Snails copulate about Midsummer ; and soon after deposit their 
eggs in the mould by running their heads and bodies under ground. 
Hence the way to be rid of them is to kill as many as possibie 
before they begin to breed. 
Large, grey, shell-less, cellar-snails lay themselves up about the 
same time with those that live abroad ; hence it is plain that a 
defect of warmth is not the only cause that influences their retreat. 
WHITE. 
SNAKE’S SLOUGH: 
-~——- There the snake throws her enamell’d skin. 
SHAKESPEARE’S A/ids. Night’s Dreant. 
About the middle of this month (September) we found in a field 
near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which seemed to have 
been newly cast. From circumstances it appeared as if turned 
wrong side outward, and as drawn off backward, like a stocking or 
woman’s glove. Not only the whole skin, but scales from the very 
eyes, are peeled off, and appear in the head of the slough like a 
pair of spectacles. The reptile, at the time of changing his coat, 
had entangled himself intricately in the grass and weeds, so that 
the friction of the stalks and blades might promote this curious 
shifting of his exuviee. 
** Lubrica serpens 
Exuit in spinis vestem.’’— Lucker. 
It would be a most entertaining sight could a person be an eye- 
witness to such a feat, and see the snake in the act of changing his 
garment. As the convexity of the scales of the eyes in the slough 
is now inward, that circumstance alone is a proof that the skin has 
been turned : not to mention that now the present inside is much 
darker than the outer. If you look through the scales of the 
snake’s eyes from the concave side, viz. as the reptile used them, 
EE 
