o8 ELEMENTARY ZOOLOGY 



then in some gopher-hole, or, in the warmer climates, 

 under some log or stone, there to lie dormant until the 

 warm days of spring come, when it resumes activity. 



The garter snake sheds its skin at least once a year, 

 sometimes oftener. This process may be observed in 

 snakes kept in confinement. For some time before molt- 

 ing the animal remains torpid, the eyes become milky, 

 and the skin loses its lustre. After a few days it conceals 

 itself, the skin about the lips and snout pulls away and the 

 animal slips out of its entire skin. The snake not only 

 sheds the skin of the body but also the covering of the 

 eyes. Snakes have no eyelids, as we have already noted, 

 that which represents the eyelid being a transparent 

 membrane which covers the eyeball. 



No species of the garter snake group is poisonous. 

 Sometimes a garter snake may appear to be vicious, but 

 its teeth are very short and at best it can only make a 

 small scratch scarcely piercing the skin. 



OTHER REPTILES. 



The class Reptilia includes the lizards, snakes, tortoises, 

 turtles, crocodiles, and alligators. Although popularly 

 associated in the common mind with the batrachians, the 

 reptiles are really more nearly related to the birds than 

 to the salamanders and frogs. In general shape they 

 more nearly resemble the batrachians, but in the structural 

 condition of the internal body organs they are more like 

 the birds. They are cold-blooded, and breathe exclu- 

 sively by means of lungs, the forms which live in water 

 coming to the surface to breathe. They are covered with 

 horny scales or plates, which with the entire absence of 

 gills after hatching readily distinguish them from all the 

 batrachians. While most reptiles live on land, some in- 

 habit fresh water and some the ocean. As the young 



