THE WONDER OF LIFE 523 



velope made of coiled filaments ; these unwind when the 

 eggs are laid, and are over a hundred in number. The 

 filaments unite into strings, and these into a cylindrical 

 band. Thus the eggs are bound together, forming a twin 

 cluster like a double bunch of onions. The connecting 

 band passes through the bony ring and the male goes about 

 carrying the eggs effectively fastened on the top of his 

 head. The details of the curious attaching filaments 

 which fasten the eggs together have been recently studied 

 by Prof. F. Guitel, who compares them with those of 

 another fish, Clinus argentatus. The adaptation is very 

 remarkable, and one would like to know more in regard 

 to the manner in which the eggs come to be fastened to 

 the bony ring. 



Egg -Eating Snake. A remarkable structural adapta- 

 tion associated with a remarkable habit is to be seen in the 

 African egg-eating snake, Dasypeltis scabra, a weak-bodied 

 creature less than a yard in length which is able to swallow 

 birds' eggs three times the diameter of the thickest part of 

 its body. The jaws are almost toothless, but a few pos- 

 terior teeth are present which serve to grip the egg. There 

 is the usual alternate gripping and muscular engulfing, and 

 the intact egg slips into the gullet. It is then met by the 

 sharp points of the inferior spines of a number of the verte- 

 brae, which project into the gullet, and cut the egg-shells. 

 It is said that they are actually tipped with enamel. The 

 result of the structural adaptation is that none of the precious 

 egg is wasted. Mr. Ditmars, the curator of reptiles at the 

 Zoological Park in New York, who has a wide experience 

 of living snakes, says that the empty egg-shells are always 

 returned, and that this habit is quite unique. Many snakes 

 eat eggs, but they break the shells in a rough and ready 



