100 
ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. 
rislimeiit ; sometimes they have been still longer before 
dying of starvation.^ 
We are ignorant whether serpents drink, and it is pro-^ 
bable they do not, no fluid having been found in the sto- 
machs of these animals on dissection. 
The continual changes of our atmosphere operate more 
or less powerfully on serpents. Fond of heat, they eagerly 
search for places exposed to the rays of the sun, whilst they 
remain concealed during rain, or in windy weather : at the 
approach of a storm, when the atmosphere is charged with 
electricity, they are often seen to leave their retreats, in a 
state of agitation not natural to their kind, and to pass over 
open places. Unable to support the effects of cold, which, 
at the same time, deprives them of food, serpents retire on 
the approach of winter into retreats, most frequently subter- 
raneous, and always secured against the inclemencies of the 
weather ; these are sometimes in burrows, or in heaps of 
stones, sometimes in dunghills, or in the hollow of a tree. 
In such situations, many are often found together in the 
same place of retreat,' in a profound torpor, until the 
vivifying rays of the sun reanimate them in the spring. 
It is obvious that the duration of this periodic sleep should 
be longer or shorter according to the climate which the 
serpents inhabit ; and that in a region in which there reigns 
a perpetual spring, these reptiles are not liable to pass a 
certain time in this torpor. The researches of travellers 
have shewn that this is a fact ; but there are some exceptions 
to that law, which leads to the supposition, that defect of 
food is the cause of this torpor. M. Von HuMBOLDTf states, 
on the information of the natives, that the Boa murina, dur- 
ing the long rains that inundate the immense deserts of 
South America, remains buried in the argillaceous soil, 
until the mud, dried by the heats which immediately suc- 
ceed the rainy season, cracks to let out the monstrous rep- 
tile from the tomb which inclosed it. In Surinam, Brazil, 
and other districts of South America, inhabited by this boa, 
^ [The translator knew of two rattlesnakes living 18 months without 
swallowing any food.] 
t Amichtm, i. p. 35. 
