OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 417 



worms ; while the shelled snail, the 3>epeoiKos, does not come forth at all 

 till about April loth, and not only lays itself up pretty early in autumn, 

 in places secure from frost, but also throws out round the mouth of 

 its shell a thick operculum 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 

 whales 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, grey, shell-less, cellar-snails lay themselves up about the 

 same time with those that live abroad ; hence it is plain that a 

 defect of warmth is not the only cause that influences their retreat. 



WHITE. 



SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 



There the snake throws her enamell'd skin. 



SHAKESPEARE'S Mids. NigJit'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. " LUCKET. 



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, 



P 



