A YEAR OF SNAKES 341 



The pumpkin-bed must be alive with young snakes, 

 unless the wet summer has made an unusual number 

 of the eggs bad. They are probably eating worms 

 just now, and will spend their first short season on 

 that for their main diet. They will be unearthed, 

 and many of them slain, when the manure is carted 

 out to the field. At any rate, that operation will 

 make an end of their easy life in the land of plenty. 

 They will scatter each one about its own affairs, but 

 before winter there will be a reunion, and numbers 

 will go into dormitory together. That will be some- 

 where up on the dry banks, and next spring on a 

 fine day we shall find them laced together, enjoying 

 the warm April sun. May it be warm enough to 

 make their scales like hot flat-irons and their young 

 bones to snap like gorse-pods ! 



