44 
STRANGE DWELLINGS. 
CHAPTER III. 
BURROWING REPTILES . 
The Reptiles and their hibernation — The Land Tortoise and its winter 
dwelling — The Crocodiles — Snakes — The Yellow Snake of Jamaica — Its 
general habits — Its burrowing powers discovered — Presumed method of 
removing the earth. 
The Reptiles are, as a body, not remarkable for the burrows 
which they make. 
Many of them bore their way into the ground, pass a few 
months in a state of torpidity, and then push their way out 
again. But the hole which they make in the earth is scarcely 
to be called a home, inasmuch as the inhabitant merely enters 
it as a convenient place wherein it may become torpid, and 
abandons it as soon as the ordinary functions of the system are 
restored by the warmth of the succeeding year. 
The common Land Tortoise, for example ( Testudo Grceca ), is 
in the habit of slowly digging a burrow with almost painful de- 
liberation, and then concealing itself below the surface of the 
earth during the cold months of winter. Many Tortoises which 
have lived in this country have been noticed to perform this act, 
and I have lately seen a very good example of a burrow which 
had been sunk amid some strawberry plants, and from which 
the inmate had just emerged. 
Many other reptiles follow a similar course of action. The 
crocodiles, for example, sink themselves deeply in the mud, and 
have more than once caused much alarm by awakening out 
of their hibernation, and protruding their unwelcome snouts 
from the mud close to the feet of the astonished spectator. 
Snakes are accustomed, in like manner, to conceal themselves 
during the period of their hibernation, resorting to hollow trees, 
