HOW TO KNOW THE REPTILES 



By DOUGLAS ENCrx.Z'^H, B.A., F.R.P.S. 

 Author of " Wee Tim'rous Beasties," " Beasties Courageous," etc. 



THE GRASS SNAKE 



THE SMOOTH SNAKE 



"With Photographs by the Author 



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must 

 pent in 



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HE Grass Snake is practically un- 

 known in Scotland. In point of 

 distribution, therefore, the Adder 

 be considered the commonest ser- 

 Great Britain. In southern 







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THE GRASS SNAKE. 



counties, where both Adder and Grass 

 Snake are plentiful, I am inclined to 

 think that the latter is actually the most 

 numerous. He is certainly the most 

 obvious, but this may be due to his in- 

 clination to bolt when alarmed, whereas 

 the Adder lies low to the last, and, for 

 this reason, must often escape notice. 



As we get northward the Grass Snake 

 tends steadily to become scarcer, and there horny tooth projecting 

 can be little doubt that this scarcity is An old female Grass 



produce their young in membranous 

 envelopes which rupture at birth, the 

 Grass Snake lays eggs which require a 

 considerable degree of heat for incubation, 

 and which hatch somewhat late in the 

 year. These eggs are 

 usually deposited in 

 some heap of decaying 

 organic matter in which 

 heat is spontaneously 

 generated — a dung-hill, 

 for example, or a pile 

 of weeds ; and the fact 

 that such heaps are 

 usually artificial 

 accounts for the per- 

 sistence with w h i c h 

 Grass Snakes frequent 

 the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of human 

 habitations. They will 

 visit the same manure 

 j' \.^ **" /• ' ' heap summer after 

 ^■^ J^. summer, a n d t h e 



' - ; ' "turning" of it in the 



autumn will often bring 

 clutch after clutch of 

 eggs to light. A single 

 snake probably lays three or four clutches, 

 each of which contains about forty 

 eggs, glued to one another by a sticky 

 secretion, elastic to the touch when fer- 

 tile, and, when about to hatch, some 

 twenty-five millimetres long. The " shell " 

 is a whitish membrane of the consistency 

 of stout paper, and the young snake cuts 

 through this by the use of a temporary 



from the snout. 

 Snake attains to 



due to the low autumnal temperatures 

 of the northern counties. Unlike the 

 Adder and the rare Smooth Snake, which 



quite formidable dimensions. I am not 

 certain that any record of a five-foot 

 Grass Snake in this country is indis- 



;8o 



