294 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 



formed from its own saliva ; so that it is perfectly secured, and 

 corked up as it were, from all inclemencies. The cause why the 

 slugs are able to endure the cold so much better than shell- 

 snails is, that their bodies are covered with slime as wales are 

 with blubber. 



Snails copulate about Midsummer; and soon after deposit 

 their eggs in the mould by running their heads and bodies under 

 ground. Hence the way to be rid of them is to kill as many as 

 possible before they begin to breed. 



Large, gray, shell-less, cellar snails lay themselves up about 

 the same time with those that live abroad ; hence it is plam that 

 a defect of warmth is not the only cause that influences their 

 retreat. 



SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 



There the snake throws her enamell'd skin. 



Shakspeare, 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 



