OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES, 29? 
fectly secured, and corked up as it were^ from all inclemencies. The 
cause why the slugs are able to endure the cold so much better than 
shell-snails is, that their bodies are covered with slime as whales are 
with blubber. 
Snails copulate about Midsummer ; and soon after deposit their eggs 
in the mould by running their heads and bodies under ground. Hence 
the way to be rid of them is to kill as many as possible before they 
begin to breed. 
Large, grey, shell-less, cellar-snails lay themselves up about the same 
time with those that live abroad ; hence it is plain that a defect of 
warmth is not the only cause that influences their retreat. — White. 
SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 
There the snake throws her enamelFd skin. 
Shakespeare's Mids. Night's Dream, 
About the middle of this month (September) we found in a field 
near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which seemed to have been 
newly cast. From circumstances it appeared as if turned wrong side 
outward, and as drawn off backward, like a stocking or woman's glove. 
Not only the whole skin, but scales from the very eyes, are peeled off, 
and appear in the head of the slough like a pair of spectacles. The 
reptile, at the time of changing his coat, had entangled himself 
intricately in the grass and weeds, so that the friction of the stalks 
and blades might promote this curious shifting of his exuviae. 
"Lubrica serpens 
Exuit in spinis vestem." — Lucret. 
It would be a most entertaining sight could a person be an eye- 
witness to such a feat, and see the snake in the act of changing his 
garment. As the convexity of the scales of the eyes in the slough is 
now inward, that circumstance alone is a proof that the skin has been 
turned : not to mention that now the present inside is much darker 
than the outer. If you look through the scales of the snake's eyes 
from the concave side, viz. as the reptile used them, they lessen objects 
much. Thus it appears from what has been said, that snakes crawl 
out of the mouth of their own sloughs, and quit the tail part last, just 
as eels are skinned by a cook maid. "While the scales of the eyes are 
growing loose, and a new skin is forming, the creature, in appearance, 
must be blind, and feel itself in an awkward uneasy situation. 
White. 
I have seen many sloughs or skins of snakes entire, after they have 
cast them off ; and once in particular I remember to have found one of 
these sloughs so intricately interwoven amongst some brakes, that it 
was with difficulty removed without being broken : this undoubtedly 
was done by the creature to assist in getting rid of its incumbrance. 
I have great reason to suppose that the eft or common lizard also 
casts its skin or slough, but not entire like the snake ; for on the 30th 
of March, 1777, I saw one with something ragged hanging to it, which 
appeared to be part of its old skin. — Markwick. 
