SHORT STUDIES OF SNAKES. 297 



have never come across one less than four inches in 

 length, except in the cases of the brood of hog-nose 

 snakes mentioned above, and of those which I have 

 ushered into day by unceremoniously breaking the egg 

 before the occupants were quite ready to emerge. 



Even larger snakes, those measuring from six to ten 

 inches in length, are by no means common. This may be 

 due to the fact that they are surrounded by enemies 

 which make sad havoc with their numbers, or possibly 

 some of our smaller mammals may feast upon the eggs. 

 Precisely what these enemies are I can not determine, 

 though I am sure of their existence. More than once I 

 have seen skunks rooting in newly-plowed ground, and 

 at the time it occurred to me that they were probably 

 searching for turtles' or snakes' eggs. Those of the tur- 

 tle would largely escape detection, if an animal searching 

 for them were guided by scent alone, as they are more 

 deeply buried, and, except by the snappers, care is taken 

 in obliterating all trace of the locality. In the case of 

 the snakes, however, no such care is exercised ; and their 

 eggs are buried in such a shiftless manner that a hard 

 rain often exposes them to full view. 



"While it sometimes happens, in early spring, that 

 snakes are met with in such numbers and so closely as- 

 sociated as to appear as one object with innumerable 

 heads, I have never seen anything similar to the bundles 

 or balls of snakes mentioned by some observers. True, 

 I once saw what I believe to have been fully fifty snakes, 

 lying " all in a heap," but when I approached them, the 

 individuality of each became apparent, as they scampered 

 off in every direction, regardless of their neighbors' move- 

 ments. A veritable bundle of snakes has been described 

 in the " American Naturalist " for March, 1880, as fol- 

 lows : "The statements made by Humboldt, as to the 



