13. COLUBRIDA 



Young birds also sometimes are eaten. On one occasion a 

 half-grown snake of this kind was found in an aviary where 

 domestic canaries were breeding. The snake had crawled 

 into the cage through the half-inch mesh of the wire netting 

 without difficulty. After having dined on the contents of 

 a nest, however, the diameter of the snake was so much 

 increased that it could not escape and was killed. When I 

 opened it I found three nearly fledged young canaries. 



I once saw a Boyle's Milk Snake kill and eat a Pituofhis 

 c. catenifer which was only about three inches shorter than 

 itself. See plate No. 82 for photographs. 



A female gopher snake which I had in captivity had been 

 captured a few days before "in a marsh near Palo Alto," 

 Santa Clara County, California. During the next few days 

 this snake lay almost motionless in a small box in my office 

 in the California Academy of Sciences. On the afternoon 

 of July 13, however, it became very restless and seriously 

 injured its snout in attempting to find some hole through 

 which it might escape from its prison. The next morning — 

 July 14 — to my surprise, several eggs were in the box, and 

 the number was added to at intervals until by noon of the 

 next day, 19 eggs had been laid. 



The eggs when first laid are covered with a loose, soft, 

 sticky, parchment-like white membrane. This quickly dries 

 and hardens, shrinking upon the substance of the egg until 

 quite tense and cementing each egg to the others upon which 

 it is laid. After the membranous shell has become dry it 

 ceases to shrink, and if the substance of the egg be reduced, 

 as by evaporation, wrinkles appear upon its surface. How- 

 ever, the softness of the shell and its power to shrink upon 

 its contents are restored by the application of water. 



The eggs as laid formed a great cluster surrounded by 

 the coiled body of the snake. The latter hissed fiercely 



