74 The American Naturalist. [January; 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
The Burrowing Habits of Snakes.—In my snake enclosure I 
have kept a wooden box filled with loose cotton and crumpled paper, 
and having holes in its sides for the accommodation of the reptiles. 
Throughout the heated term the snakes spent a large part of their time 
in this box, but as the weather grew cooler they abandoned it and 
found new hiding places under their bath tub, or under loose boards, 
digging down as much as possible into the thin layer of earth which 
covered the floor of their enclosure. I then lined their box and covered 
it with cloth to make it warmer and they would occupy it in fine 
weather, but on stormy or frosty nights they would come out, crawl 
under it, and lie there torpid with cold. 
It was evident that their instinct led them astray in this instance by 
prompting them to get as close to the ground as possible to avoid cold. 
One fine day when they were all in their box I took it out and put it 
down beside the garden walk, giving them their liberty that I might 
watch them seek their own winter quarters. 
Some of the Eutæniæ burrowed beneath the mudsills of a shed and 
disappeared, while others found hiding places under the house and do 
not come out even on warm days. Of the water snakes, (N. sipedon),. 
7 in number, three have left me, but the others remain in the yard and 
have not yet found permanent homes for the winter. On fine days I 
see them darting about or basking in the sun beside a puddle which I 
have prepared for them. At night, or on cool days, they may be found’ 
coiled up under a water bucket or leaky rain barrel, but none of them 
re-enter their box. I have often been surprised at the amount of cold — 
snakes of this species can endure. 
One Ophibolus getulus searched about a little while and then 
crawled under an empty barrel beside the walk. A short time after- 
wards I tilted the barrel to see what he was doing and found that he 
was trying to make a burrow, but the ground was hard and it wasslow 
work. Used to being watched he paid no attention to me but continued 
to scrape the ground with his rostral. When at length he had excav- 
ated a hole deep enough to hide his head he gave himself a rotary mo- 
tion, turning half around then back again, boring the hole a little deeper 
and throwing out a little dirt with the projecting backs of his jaws. 
Sinking still deeper he would draw himself down, filling the hole 
tightly, and then drawing back a little would throw out fine dirt with 
