THREE COMMON REPTILES 



another important particular, and that is, it 

 lays eggs, Avhereas the young adders are bom 

 as perfect little snakes. To hatch the eggs 

 heat is needed, for without warmth they will 

 never develop, so the snake, as she does not 

 brood her clutch, has to find some means of 

 getting them hatched. The means usually 

 chosen is to bury them in a heap of damp 

 decaying vegetable matter. Here the decay 

 that is going on causes considerable warmth 

 to be generated, and makes a splendid incubator 

 for snakes' eggs. But better than any natural 

 heap of leaves out in the woods and fields is a 

 melon-bed, a hot-bed, or other heap of manure, 

 so many a snake resorts to a garden to find a 

 good nursery for her eggs. Of the risks she 

 runs at the hands of the man in charge of the 

 hot-bed she never thinks, but, wriggling her 

 way in between the layers of hot manure, 

 turns and twists until she has made a hole 

 big enough to contain from twenty to forty 

 skinny white eggs, each about half an inch long. 

 The ' shell ' is quite soft like that of the 

 ' soft-shelled ' eggs hens sometimes lay, and 

 each egg is attached by the end to that next 

 to it. If you open one while it is stUl fresh, 

 you will see that it is just like a hen's egg, 



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