Almost invariably, soon after a long journey, and on being established in a new home, a snake re-attires. We have seen what their travelling cages are! Closely nailed up, and often in air-tight boxes in which the poor things are tumbled over and over with as little mercy as ceremony during removal from one conveyance to another, they arrive—as in the case of the African viper (coloured illustration)—in such a pitiable plight that it is next to impossible to identify them. Another almost invariable rule is sloughing soon after birth—that is, in from a week to a fortnight; also, during early and rapid growth, the young snake will change frequently. Most ophiologists fix upon two months as an average time, taking one snake with another; for while one may desquamate every few weeks, another may keep his coat unsoiled for six months. Sir Joseph Fayrer made careful notes on this subject. He had one cobra which changed in rather less than a month—viz. first on Oct. 17th, next on Nov. 10th, and again on Dec. 7th. A _Liophis_ at the London Gardens changed every few weeks, and a _Ptyas_—he of the lecture exhibition (p. 214)—changed almost once a month on an average. A curiously beautiful object is the cast-off coat, and well worth an examination. You discern the exact form of the reptile’s head, mouth, and nostrils, the exquisitely transparent eye-covering, the various forms of the overlapping or imbricated folds or ‘scales,’ and how admirably the broad ventral plates are adapted for locomotion; particularly noteworthy too is the perfect reversion of this coat of some feet or some yards in length, turned inside out as you may turn a sleeve. The first time I watched the process was with the celebrated Hamadryad soon after it was installed as a distinguished inmate at the Zoological Gardens. The interest attached to this _Ophiophagus_ or snake-eater had caused me to observe it on all possible occasions; and as the whole front of its cage was clear glass at that time, the spectator could easily see all that occurred within. Will the reader once more accompany me in imagination to the Gardens, and see how a snake performs its toilet? I have watched many since then, and have observed the same proceeding in them all, those in good health and able to assist themselves; in others it is a literal desquamation or peeling off of scales or fragments in a dry state. Encouraged by the very recent statement in a highly scientific journal, that no one is supposed ever to have witnessed the sloughing of snakes, I venture to again describe what I saw, having already done so in the _Dublin University Magazine_ in Dec. 1875, and in _Aunt Judy’s Magazine_ (Sept. 1874), and elsewhere.