22 



WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES. 



ing how she could have got on the 

 wall with so many young inside of 

 her, till I learned she was a climber, 



'a friend having killed one of the 

 same species when emptying a bird's 

 nest of its young, about six feet up 

 a tree-like bush, when he took the 

 birds out of her, the mother all the 

 while screaming and flying around.* 

 In regard to the snake shedding 

 its skin, White says : " 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 its garment " (p. 383). 

 But as that would be a difficult 

 matter, we must judge of the act 

 by the nature of things. So uni- 

 form is nature, that we must con- 

 clude that all snakes cast their 

 sloughs in the open air, from the 

 fact of so many being found there, 

 and, so far as known, nowhere else. 

 White says that a skin found by 

 him, in a field near a hedge, " ap- 

 peared as if turned wrong side out- 

 ward, and as drawn off backward, 

 like a stocking or woman's glove." 

 But stockings and gloves cannot be 

 drawn off inside out. Again he 

 says, " snakes crawl out of the 

 mouth of their own sloughs," and 

 there he is right, but very confused 

 when he adds, " and quit the tail 

 part last, just as eels are skinned by 

 a cook-maid." How could a stock- 

 ing or glove be drawn off " just as 

 eels are skinned " ? The cook 

 makes an incision round the neck, 

 and takes hold of the head in one 

 hand and the skin in the other, and 

 pulls opposite ways, so that the skin 

 must come off "wrong side out- 

 ward." It would be as impossible 

 for a snake to turn its skin inside 

 out, as it came out of it, as it would 

 be for a hand to draw itself out of 

 its glove with the same result ; even 



r .the glove must be placed against 



* Snakes do not ascend a tree cork- 

 screw-like, as some might think, but 

 straight up, as they go on the ground, 

 but not of course so fast. Many of them 

 are also excellent swimmers. 



something presenting resistance to 

 allow the hand to be pulled out of 

 it in the ordinary way. It would 

 be interesting to see an unsophisti- 

 cated man like White attempt with 

 his sock or glove what he asserts 

 the snake must have done. He 

 seems to have forgotten what he 

 said on another occasion. " I de- 

 light very little in analogous reason- 

 ing, knowing how fallacious it is 

 with regard to natural history " (p. 

 1 06). " Ingenious men will 

 readily advance plausible argu- 

 ments to support whatever theory 

 they shall choose to maintain ; but 

 then the misfortune is, every one's 

 hypothesis is each as good as an- 

 other's, since they are all founded 

 on conjecture " (p. 90). The 

 British snake can shed its skin in 

 no other way than the American 

 one, that is, leave it right side out- 

 ward, and no more turning it than 

 a scabbard would be turned by the 

 sword being drawn out of it, as the 

 Illinois gentleman expressed it. If 

 snakes shed their skins when in a 

 state of captivity, it should be 

 known in England how it is done. 



The shedding of its skin doubt- 

 less causes a snake pain or sickness, 

 but that is not likely to arise from 

 the thick part of the body passing 

 through the skin of a narrower 

 part. The stretching of the skin 

 in itself must be a pleasant sensa- 

 tion, when the animal swallows its 

 prey. The sickness must proceed 

 from the skin separating from the 

 body, as it probably does gradually 

 and all over. The snake then re- 

 quires something to press its side 

 against, for the resistance necessary 

 to enable it to pull itself out of its 

 old garment.f 



f The following appeared in Land and 

 Water, on the nth October, 1873 : 



" SNAKES SHEDDING THEIR SKINS. Sir : Mr. 

 Higford Burr, in Land and Water of the i3th 

 September, in allusion to my article on the 23d 

 August, advances the idea of White of Selborne, 

 which I did not consider of sufficient importance 

 to notice, that snakes cast their skins inside out 

 because ' the coverings of the eyes are concave ' 

 or hollow. That, in my opinion, is the very reason 



