350 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS, 



1 



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 Midsummer NigMs 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 fric- 

 tion of the stalks and blades might promote this curious 

 shifting of the exuvise. 



"Lubrica serpens 



Exuit in spinis vestem." — Lucret. 



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, 

 they lessen objects much. Thus it appears from what has 

 been said, that snakes crawl out of the mouth of their own 

 sloughs, and quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned 

 by a cook maid. Whilst the scales of the eyes are growing 

 loose, and a new skin is forming, the creature in appearance 



