TREATMENT 0E SNAKES IN CAPTIVITY. 105 



the earth in which it grows, thus acquiring a coat of mud which 

 they transfer to the gravel and bath, and smear about the glass. 

 Such an arrangement, however, is well suited to serpents 

 belonging to Philodryas, Herpctodryas, and allied genera, which 

 live almost entirely among the leaves, their long lithe bodies 

 twining gracefully in and out between them, and scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable when at rest by the unaccustomed eye. As a rule, 

 "pretty" effects are to be mistrusted, where snakes are in 

 question. A crystal vivarium, with beautiful serpents roaming 

 and climbing about within it, is quite handsome and striking 

 enough, if kept clean, without the addition of any adventitious 

 decorations. Allusion has already been made to the stucco rock- 

 work and mirrors displayed in the four reptile-cages opposite the 

 Lions in the Antwerp Jardin Zoologique — et praterea nihil in 

 some of them, very often ! — but the most atrocious cruelties are 

 perpetrated to obtain picturesque and bizarre effects. Unhappy 

 snakes have been compelled to writhe in a narrow interspace 

 between two sheets of glass as window-transparencies and fire- 

 screens ; have been prisoned in tubes of water surrounded by 

 flowers ; and have fretted their lives away in miserable little 

 bowl-shaped shades, made to cover stuffed birds, hanging on 

 drawing-room walls. Some writers have even asserted that the 

 inhabitants of certain countries ivear them commonly as 

 bracelets, necklaces, and even as earrings, passed bodily through 

 the lobe of the ear — a statement which requires a good many 

 grains of the chloride for its deglutition when we remember the 

 universal horror with which they are regarded in every country 

 by the only class likely to be guilty of such a practice, the 

 impossibility of retaining them in such a position, and the 

 certainty of their biting if they could be so retained. Still, the 

 point is not of much moment here, since I presume that the 

 reader will value his serpents rather as materials for the 

 study of Ophiology, than as the means for indulgence in per- 

 sonal adornment. 



It is usually advantageous to keep newly-born snakes of all 

 species in feeding condition through their first winter in captivity, 

 even if they belong to a comparatively cold habitat, and adults of 

 the same kind are allowed to hybernate. For these, or for any tiny 

 snakes of a few inches in length, especially for a single specimen of 

 some brilliantly-coloured, rare, or delicate serpent, a smaller and 



