70 SERPENTS 



not develop eggs with shells, but instead retain their eggs in 

 their own bodies until the young are fully developed. Fi- 

 nally, they are brought forth, each fully enclosed in a thin, 

 membranous sac, which the little serpent quickly bursts. 

 Snakes that lay eggs are called o-vip f a-rous, and those that 

 bring forth their young alive are called vi-vip'a-rous. 



Although serpents ' are cold-blooded animals, they reach 

 their highest development in warm latitudes, and in regions 

 of arctic cold they do not survive. In the temperate zone 

 and the tropics, Nature has fitted them for life upon the 

 ground, in the water and in the tree-tops; and they inhabit 

 swamps, uplands and deserts. They live under stones and 

 logs, in hollow trees and stumps, and in holes in the earth ; 

 they seldom attack man wilfully, and without provocation. 



FOOD OF SERPENTS. In a wild state snakes feed chiefly 

 upon frogs and toads, fish, other snakes, small birds and 

 mammals. Large serpents feed upon mammals of all sizes, 

 up to small deer and goats. Water snakes feed chiefly upon 

 fish and frogs. Land species find frogs, toads and small 

 lizards their cheapest prey, but the extent to which snakes 

 feed upon each other is quite surprising. For example, the 

 king cobra, 1 a large, athletic, and very deadly land serpent 

 of the Malay Peninsula, feeds exclusively upon other snakes 

 and lizards, and while a greedy feeder upon what it prefers, 

 it persistently refuses all other food. During the three years 

 that one of these serpents has been kept in the Zoological 

 Park, it has persistently refused to eat any of the moccasins 

 or rattlesnakes which have been offered to it. 



1 Na'ja bun-gar' us. 



