35 



interval between each cast. At the approach of the casting, 

 the colours of the snake become somewhat dull, and a white 

 film is seen over the surface of the eye. When the skin, 

 or rather the epidermis (for it is the colourless scarf skin 

 which separates, like in human beings after an attack of 

 scarlet fever) is ready to be cast, the snake rubs the skin 

 back from his nose and chin, and seeks some projecting 

 point such as would be afforded by a split bamboo, some 

 stiff thatch, or a heap of stones, on which to catch the 

 loose skin ; perhaps adhesion is aided by the application of 

 glutinous saliva ; anyhow the snake manages to stick the 

 loose skin of the nose and chin to some tonvenient object, 

 and then proceeds k> peel himself out of his epidermis 

 which of course remains inside out like an eel's skin aifter 

 the involuntary exit of its tenant — with this difference,, 

 that the snake has -had numerous opportunities, denied to 

 the eel, of becoming used to the process. The cast skins 

 are beautiful objects, there is often ncft a brieak in them 

 from nose to tip. The epidermal covering of the eye comes 

 off along with the rest of the skin, and every scale, every 

 keel is distinctly marked ; colour alone is absent,* but even 

 without it the kind of snake to whom the skin belonged 

 can often be identified.f They are very delicate and 

 fragile, and are liable to destruction by mites unless kept 

 shut up along with camphor. The cast skin of a Ftyas 

 mucosus, 9 feet long, weighs 130 grains or a little over a 

 quarter of an ounce. 



* The pattern of the Python and of some Dipsadidoe is visitle in 

 their cast skins. 



t When I was stationed at Kamptee in 1868, the house I occupied, 

 jointly with a brother-officer, also gave shelter to a cobra and a pair 

 of BuTigarws arcuatus. I never saw them, but easily identified them 

 by the skins they periodically cast. The cobra hved on my friend's 

 side of the house, the other snakes hved in a hole in the wall under 

 my dressing table. 



