THE YELLOW SNAKE. 
45 
holes in the ground, and similar localities. Labourers while 
engaged in digging, especially in breaking down banks, fre- 
quently unearth a goodly assemblage of snakes, all coiled up in 
an unsuspected cavity, which they must have entered through 
the deserted burrow of a mouse or some other little animal. But 
that a snake should be able to form its own burrow is a feature 
so remarkable in herpetology, that a single accredited example 
must not be passed without notice. 
In his very interesting work on the natural history of Jamaica, 
Mr. Gosse gives a curious account of a burrow made by the 
Yellow Snake ( Chilabothrus inornatus). This snake is very 
plentiful in Jamaica, and is perfectly harmless to man, being 
destitute of poison-fangs, and not reaching a size which would 
render it formidable to human beings. Its average length, when 
full-grown, is eight feet. So far, indeed, from being obnoxious 
to man, it may rank among his best friends, as being a deter- 
mined foe to rats, feeding largely upon them, and even entering 
houses in search of its prey. Like the weasel, indeed, of our 
own country, which feeds mostly on mice and other destructive 
animals, but occasionally makes a raid upon the fowl- house, the 
Yellow Snake enters the farmyard, and, instead of eating rats as 
it ought to do, proceeds to the hen-roosts, and robs them. No 
less than seven eggs have been found inside a single Yellow 
Snake, and not a single egg was broken. 
There is now (1863) a good specimen in the Reptile-room of 
the Zoological Gardens of London. 
One of these snakes was seen to crawl out of a hole in the 
side of a yam-hill — i.e. a bank of mould prepared for the purpose 
of growing yams — and when the earth was carefully removed, a 
large chamber was discovered in the middle of the hill, nicely 
lined with strips of half-dried plantain leaves, technically called 
4 trash,’ and containing six eggs, all fastened together. Just 
outside the hole was a heap of loose mould, which had evidently 
been thrown out when the excavation was made. 
The Yellow Snake generally makes its home in the deep spaces 
between the spurs of the fig or the buttresses of the cotton-tree ? 
and always lines it with ‘trash;’ but that the creature should 
