Homes Without Hands. Being A Description of the Habitations of Animals, Classed According to their Principle of Construction. by the Rev. J.G. Wood ... With New Designs by W.F. Keyl, and E. Smith. Engraved by G. Pearson.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. BURROWING REPTILES. The Reptiles and their Hibernation.?The Laud Tortoise and its Winter Dwell ing.?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 rernarkable 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 Orceca), is in the habit of slowly digging a burrow with almost painful deliberation, 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, burrow 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, holes in the ground, and similar localities. Laborers, while engaged in digging, especially in breaking down banks, frequently unearth a goodly assemblage of ...