The method of crawling shown by the worm, as described in Nature Reader, No. 2, is very much like that of some snakes. There are three ways in which snakes make their progression. First, they may glide forward with a perfectly straight motion, by pushing with the scutes, or large scale-like plates of the under part of the body, to which the ends of the ribs are attached. Second, these scutes may open out as the scales of a fish when scraped backward from head to tail,[74] and on the edges of these opened scute-plates, the snake may walk. Third, they may go forward by pushing; stretching out the body, and then contracting it, and making the same motion over again, these motions being sinuous, or wave-like, from side to side. The light, smooth body of the snake, provided with numerous small, powerful muscles, renders its progress by any of these methods exceedingly rapid. Water snakes swim, waving the body from side to side, and using the tail as an oar is used in sculling. No serpent can move on a perfectly smooth surface, as glass; it must have some ridges, or roughness to resist the motions of the scales and ribs. Serpents are dumb except for their hiss, which is produced by driving the air swiftly from the lungs. In some snakes the hiss is varied to a whine or hum. Serpents, like the batrachians, cast off their skins and come out in gleaming new skins which have grown under the old ones. If the serpent for any reason cannot cast its skin at the proper time, it sickens and dies. The cast coat is perfect in form, but is generally turned inside out. Cast snake-skins are sometimes found in the woods by sharp-eyed boys. Sometimes the lucky boy finds a whole skin; at other times the cast skin has been partly destroyed by ants, beetles, or the effects of the weather. Some snakes swallow their cast-off skins. Snakes usually move about and hunt in the day-time, and sleep at night. They hibernate, or take a long winter sleep, as the lizards do. For hibernation they retire to caves, to holes in logs or in the ground, and may be found torpid, a number rolled closely together. At such times the most poisonous snakes, as the viper and rattlesnake, may be handled without danger. In the spring they begin to revive with the first warm weather. I remember that when I was a little girl a very beautiful hollow or cave in the river-bank not far from Niagara Falls was called “The Rattlesnake’s Cove,” because so many snakes lived there. In summer the place was carefully avoided. In early spring, before the snakes awoke from their sleep, this cove was a favorite place for picnics, and the school-boys often went there armed with knives, hatchets, picks, and hoes, and hunted for the torpid snakes and killed them by scores.