436 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES 



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 the exuviae. 



• " Lubrica serpens 



Exuit in spinis vestem." — Lucret. 



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, 

 they lessen objects much. Thus it appears from what has 

 been said, that snakes crawl out of the mouth of their own 

 sloughs, and quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned 

 by a cook maid. While the scales of the eyes are growing 

 loose, and a new skin is forming, the creature, in appear- 

 ance, must be blind, and feel itself in an awkward uneasy 

 situation. 



