OF REPTILES. 
219 
or opposition, even the naked Indians do not fear to as- 
sail them. But it is otherwise when this sleeping inter- 
val of digestion is over: they then issue, with famished 
appetites from their retreats, and with accumulated ter- 
rors, while every animal of the forest flies from their 
presence. They never bite, however, from any other 
impulse than that of hunger, and when they do, their 
bites are destitute of venom. 
Common English Snake. The ringed or black snake, 
.which is the most common, and largest of the Eng- 
lish serpents, sometimes exceed four feet in length. 
The neck is slender; the middle of the body thick; the 
back and sides covered with small scales; the belly with 
oblong, narrow, transverse plates; the colour of the back 
m*arked with two rows of small black spots, running 
from the head to the tail; the plates on the belly 
are dusky; the scales on the sides are of a bluish 
white; the teeth are small and serrated, lying on each 
side of the jaw, in two rows. The whole species is 
perfectly inoffensive, taking shelter in dunghills, and 
among bushes in moist places, whence they seldom re- 
move, unless in the midst of the day, in summer, when 
they are called out by the heat to bask themselves in the 
sun. If attacked, they first endeavour to escape, but 
if much pressed, they begin to hiss, and put themselves 
in a threatening position, though incapable of doing mis- 
chief. 
These snakes in winter conceal themselves, and become 
nearly torpid, re-appearing in spring, when they uniformly 
cast their skins. This is a process that they also seem to 
undergo in the autumn. 
The female deposits her eggs in holes fronting the 
south, near stagnant waters; but more frequently in 
dunghills, in the form of a continued chain of ova, to 
the number of from twelve to twenty: these are about 
the size of the eggs of a blackbird, of a whitish colour, 
and covered with a parchment like membrane. The 
young ones are rolled up spirally within the middle of the 
fluid, which greatly resembles the white of a fowl’s egg% 
