268 
About midsummer the female snake lays her eggs, from 
4 to 27 in number, in—if possible—her favourite nest, a 
manure heap. Where did she lay them in the days when 
dunghills were of less frequent occurrence? I have never been 
able to hatch out snakes’ eggs in a cage. 
The food of the snake consists of frogs, newts, young 
birds, mice, birds’ eggs and insects. In the excrete of snakes 
I have found masses of the fur of the meadow vole. In the 
fur were numerous small bones, but where these had protruded 
they had been dissolved by the process of digestion, and their 
abrupt ends were blackened, as if by charring in a fire. His. 
manner of feeding, and his dexterity in seizing his prey, are 
very interesting. The jaws of the snake are united by what 
may be termed a double hinge, so that he can open them to 
twice the extent allowed by the single-hinged jaws of quad- 
rupeds and man. The bones of the jaws are united in front 
by cartilage, and therefore the snake can open his jaws until 
they lie nearly in the same plane, and can expand them until 
their orifice is nearly round, like the end of a tube. 
In confinement the snake likes to catch his own dinner, 
and will seize newts swimming in a vessel of water in his cage. 
One of my snakes ate 17 newts at a meal; another devoured 
a gudgeon six inches long; and a third, when coiled round 
my hand, would catch sticklebacks in an aquarium. He 
lowered his head in the water, and opened his mouth, when 
the fish mistook his red jaws for a piece of meat, or perhaps 
a worm, and, coming near, were captured. This snake was 
a small one, but he had no difficulty in disposing of a stickle- 
back, whether the spines of the fish (which are a quarter of 
an inch long) were erect or depressed. The snake is said to 
eat toads, and undoubtedly does so, but not, I believe, habitually. 
(See page 275.) I have had at least 30 snakes at different times 
in my possession, and had but one which would touch 
a toad. This snake was very hungry, and ate a little toad. 
About four days afterwards he died, and as there was a bright 
green mark on his stomach, I cut him open, and there was 
the toad, undigested, but a nauseous mess, dark green in colour ; 
"we Hy 
