332 COMMON REPTILES OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



ences that seem to depend partly on the nature of 

 the soil, and partly on the rate at which the reptile 

 was moving over it. Towards the end of the cold 

 weather the presence of snakes is further advertised 

 by the appearance of pallid fluttering streamers, 

 projecting from amid heaps of stones on the surfaces 

 of mouldering walls, and marking the sites where 

 their former owners have made their annual change 

 of skin on awakening to renewed activity with the 

 rising temperature. These casts are sometimes mere 

 tattered fragments, but often are beautifully perfect, 

 showing the impression of every scale, and even the 

 delicate transparent membranes corresponding with 

 the surfaces of the eyes. As has been pointed out 

 already, such casts seem to appeal very strongly 

 to the aesthetic sense of the common mynas, who 

 greedily appropriate them as constituents for their 

 nests. Later in the year collections of snakes' 

 eggs are often to be found, stowed away in the 

 recesses of old walls or among heaps of rubbish, and 

 containing young reptiles in various stages of de- 

 velopment. On opening the eggs it is curious to 

 note how early the young animals begin to show the 

 distinctive actions of the species to which they belong. 

 This is particularly striking in the case of young 

 cobras, who begin to try to sit up and to expand 

 their imperfectly developed hoods long before the 

 time for their natural emergence has come. 



Lycodon aulicus and Tropidonotus stolatus are 



