556 HABITS OF A SMALL SNAKE IN CAPTIVITY. 



hours the skin all ovei' the fore part of the head was gradually loosened 

 and lifted, but nothing more occurred that day. Early the next 

 morning, on examining the bottle, I found the snake had evidently 

 twisted or matted together some of the stouter stalks and fibres of 

 the grass so as to form a kind of nai-row loop, within which it was. 

 then hangmg with nearly half the skin pushed back from its body. At 

 short intervals, the tongue in rapid vibration all the while, the creature 

 urged itself further and further within the loop, and in this manner 

 the skin was gradually forced back, until finally it came away 

 altogether, a small portion of the extreme end of the finely-pointed tail 

 coming off with it. On getting quite free, the creature di'ank very 

 eagerly four or five times, and then retired among the grass and kept 

 quiet, but was ready for its accustomed walk the same evening. 



I waited now only for the coming of the warm days to take my 

 captive to the fields and set it free. But it was doomed to die in its 

 captivity. One evening whilst the snake was taking its usual 

 promenade, a young cat, to which I had given shelter on a bitter 

 winter night, and which afterwards remained on sufferance about the 

 place, stole into the room unobserved and sprang suddenly upon the 

 table. I was standing at the time a few paces ofi^, and I had in my 

 hand a somewhat bulky but unbound book. I made pretence to hurl 

 this at the cat, when the book flew from my hand and struck the 

 unfortunate snake, inflicting upon it a long and terxible wound, from 

 which its entrails protruded. Seeing that the hurt was beyond remedy,. 

 I put the creature out of its pain by killing it at once : and thus our- 

 seven months' companionship was brought abruptly to an end.. 



