52 NOTES TO THE 



The appearance of the eggs in this dungheap, just as the parent 

 snake or snakes had placed them, was so striking, that 1 took 

 them home and cast them in plaster of Paris, old snake and all. 

 The cast, coloured to nature, is now in my museum. 



" There were sixty-four eggs altogether in this one bunch. I do 

 not know from experience how many eggs the common snake 

 lays, but I should say from twenty to thirty. It is, therefore, 

 probable that more than one snake had chosen the spot oa 

 this dunghill to deposit their eggs, just as one salmon will 

 deposit her eggs in a favourable place without consideration for 

 the other motlier salmon that precedes or follows her. 



" The temperature where the eggs were deposited [in the dung- 

 heap] was about 84 in the sun, and the nest was buried about 

 eighteen inches deep on the southern aspect, as though the 

 mother snake knew that that was the best place for the eggs. 

 I then proceeded to dissect some of these eggs. A few of them 

 were blanks, containing nothing, but all the rest were good 

 eggs. When the skin was cut through, a quantity of clear 

 albumen came out, just the same as the white of a hen's egg. 

 Floating in this was a yolk of a much yellower colour than that 

 of the hen's egg, and inside this yolk was discoverable the 

 embryo snake. Out of the three embryo baby snakes I examined 

 two of them were quite lively, but gelatinous, and as yet not 

 well enough developed to move more than to give a slight 

 wriggle. The heart, however, could distinctly be seen to beat 

 under the transparent skin for some seconds. The brain also 

 was very prominent. In the drawing two little snakes are 

 represented as just hatched out. My readers should search for 

 snakes' eggs in old dunghills in August and September. My 

 friend Mr. Burr preserves snakes in his park ; he will not allow 

 them to be killed. Vipers, however, are kept down as much as 

 possible." 



The drawing (p. 53) shows the wonderful manner in which the 

 vertebraj of snakes are united, so as to combine strength with 

 freedom of motion. This wondrous structure has been so ably 

 described by Dr. Eoget, in his Bridgewater Treatise on Animal 

 and Vegetable Physiology, which everyone should read, that I 

 quote it as a sample of the Doctor's power of describing evidences 

 of design: 



" It is evident that, in the absence of all external instruments 

 of prehension and of progressive motion, it is necessary that the 

 spine should be rendered extremely flexible, so as to adapt itself 

 to a great variety of movements. This extraordinary flexibility 

 is given, first, by the subdivision of the spinal column into a 

 great number of small pieces ; secondly, by the great freedom of 



