- 2 - 



I set forth my observations in 1940 on a large specimen of an Amurian 

 runner ( Elaphe schrencki Str.), taken from the Soviet Far East. In cap- 

 tivity it readily and repeatedly swallowed chicken eggs, even very large 

 ones . 



As a rule, the runner began to swallow the egg from its blunt end. 

 Depending upon the size of the egg the whole process of swallowing - 

 from the moment of its seizure to dropping into the esophagus - lasted 

 10 - 20 minutes. It is interesting that the shell of the egg was not 

 damaged and bore no visible marks from the snake's teeth. After the egg 

 entered the esophagus, the runner pressed head and fore part of the body 

 to the floor of the terrarium and bent almost vertically the part of its 

 body which was situated behind the egg in the esophagus. Then followed 

 a movement of the elevated section of the body forward and downward. The 

 noise of the shell breaking was heard, and the part of the body which was 

 stretched by the swallowed egg, immediately very much diminished in 

 diameter. It is very certain that the egg was crushed in the esophagus, 

 and by no means in the intestines, as described by A- A. Emelyanov, and 

 the contents of the egg dealt with in the stomach. In contrast to the egg 

 snake, which apparently eats birds' eggs exclusively and regurgitates the 

 shell immediately after it has been crushed in the esophagus, the Amurian 

 runner passes the shell through the entire alimentary canal and it appears 

 with the excrement. In the runner which I observed pieces of the broken 

 shell appeared with the excrement 5-8 days after the egg was swallowed. 



Having repeatedly observed this process in the Amurian runner living 

 in a terrarium, I have concluded that in crushing the shell, part of the 

 hypapophyses of the fore section of the spinal column must have participated. 

 An investigation of the spinal column of three specimens of the Amurian 

 runner, of which one was young, verified this assumption (Chernov 1945). 



As in many other species of the family Colubridae, in the Amurian runner 

 there are hypapophyses only in the anterior vertebrae of the spinal column. 

 The hypapophyses of the first 10 - 11 vertebrae are turned backward and in 

 this respect are not different from those of most other species of the 

 family. However, beginning with the 11 - 12th vertebrae, they take a 

 vertical position, and from the 15 - 16th curve forward and become some- 

 what thicker. In all vertebrae, from the 15 - lb to the 39 - 40, the 

 hypapophyses are directed forward and downward (fig. 2). In the following 

 2-3 vertebrae the hypapophyses again take a vertical position and later, 

 becoming sharply diminished, again are directed backwards. Beginning with 

 the 44 - 45th vertebrae the hypapophyses are missing (fig. 1). 



