WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



having a yellow 4 yolk ' and a quantity of 

 clear ' white ' or albumen round it. No doubt 

 it would be quite good to eat, but personally I 

 have never felt tempted to try boiled snakes' 

 eggs for breakfast ! 



The mother snake, her task finished, crawls 

 out and leaves the eggs to be hatched by the 

 warmth of the manure, and, provided no one 

 turns the hot-bed over in the meantime, they 

 soon begin to develop, so that in two or three 

 weeks' time the little snakes break through 

 their skinny covering by means of a sharp 

 point at the tip of the nose (which is shed the 

 second day after hatching), and go off out into 

 the world each about its own business. 



Sometimes a grass snake will bestow her 

 eggs in rather funny places, and in one instance 

 the snake, not contented with getting into a 

 nice warm manure heap, laid a number of 

 eggs inside a glass jam jar or bottle, that had 

 somehow or other got thrown out in the manure. 

 The heap chancing to be turned over, the eggs 

 came to light, and, owing to the kindness of 

 the owner of the garden, the bottle and 

 its contents were sent to me. As the bottle 

 was not a very big one, it seemed rather a 

 puzzle how a fair-sized snake had managed to 

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