The natural history of Selborne. Observations on various parts of nature : and The naturalist's calendar / by the late Rev. Gilbert White ; with notes, by Captain Thomas Brown.
- Gilbert White
- Date:
- 1833
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The natural history of Selborne. Observations on various parts of nature : and The naturalist's calendar / by the late Rev. Gilbert White ; with notes, by Captain Thomas Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![autumn, in places secure from frost, but also throws out round the mouth of its shell a thick operculum formed from its own saliva; so that it is perfectly 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, gray, shelless 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. SNAKE’s SLOUGH. —— There the snake throws her enamel’d skin. SuHakespEARe’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 eruvie. Lubrica serpens Exuit in spinis vestem.— Lucrer. 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 craw] out of * Slugs have the property of spinning a slimy thread, whereby they can let themselves down from a height in the manner of spiders. — En.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33094378_0355.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
