458 The Natural History of Se I borne 



SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 



" There the snake throws her enamel Fd skin." 



SHAKESPEARE'S Mids. Night's Dream. 



ABOUT the middle of this month (September) we found in a 

 field near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which 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 his 

 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 appearance, must be blind, and feel 

 itself in an awkward, uneasy situation. WHITE. 



I have seen many sloughs or skins of snakes entire, after 

 they have cast them off; and once in particular I remember 



