1652 The Zoologist— May, 1869. 



instances, ceases to make any struggle or attempt to escape. The wliole 

 body and the legs are stretched out as it were convulsively, and the snake 

 gradually draws in, first, the leg he had seized, and afterwards the rest 

 of the animal, portion after portion, by means of the peculiar mechanism 

 of the jaws so admirably adapted for this purpose. * * * When a 

 frog is in the process of being swallowed in this manner, as soon as 

 the snake's jaws have reached the body, the other hinder leg becomes 

 turned forwards ; and as the body gradually disappears, the three legs 

 and the head are seen standing forwards out of the snake's mouth in a 

 very singular manner."* (Bell's 'British Reptiles,' p. 51; Second 

 Edition.) 



This statement agrees very well with my own observations ; but 

 perhaps as I have had frequent opportunities of watching this 

 rather cruel process, I may make a trifling additinn from my own 

 experience. I have always seen the frog seized, as Mr. Bell describes, 

 by the hind leg, but I have generally seen the position changed 

 before the act of swallowing actually commenced ; the head going down 

 the throat first : I have never seen it standing out of the mouth after 

 any portion of the body had been swallowed. 



The taste for frogs leads the snake to frequent those damp situations 

 in the neighbourhood of water where frogs abound ; it lakes to the 

 water without the slightest hesitation, and swims with remarkable ease, 

 celerity and grace — the head being held clear of the water, as in 

 fanciful representations of sea-serpents. Snakes are very common in 

 such situations in England, but less so in Scotland, and are totally un- 

 known in Ireland. 



Snakes are truly oviparous, the female laying from five to fifteen 

 eggs, which are of a bluish white colour and adhere together in a mass : 

 they are generally deposited in an excavation on some damp bank 

 facing the south, and are hatched by atmospheric influence ; the egg- 

 shells arc tough and of a substance rather resembling leather than 

 the brittle calcareous matter of which the egg-shells of birds is com- 

 posed. It has been a hypothesis universally received that snakes, after 

 once depositing their eggs, take no further heed of them ; but this has 

 been assumed on the principle that the absence of evidence argues 

 the absence of fact. Since observations have become more general 

 and more numerous, there seems sufficient ground for believing that 

 the apathy of snakes, as regards their young, is assumed rather than 

 proved. The evidence of incubation which occurred in the Zoological 

 Gardens, and several reported, but rather discredited, instances of the 



