Dr. Smith saw that the broken shell was ejected, while the fluid contents were conveyed onwards; but this may have been an exceptional case, because by a snake in health egg-shells are easily digested. Probably those snakes watched by Dr. A. Smith being captives, and presumably not altogether as happy and healthy as in their sylvan homes, found the shells too much for them, and so ejected them; as the cobras above described disgorged the stolen eggs. This habit of disgorging food appears to be sometimes voluntary. Snakes have been known to pass the egg through their body entire, but this also must be owing to an abnormal state of health or of habit, as the strong juices of the stomach, which can convert even bones and horn to nutriment, ordinarily dissolve an egg-shell. Throughout nature we find that, whatever the habits of the creature may be, its structure and capacities are adapted to it. Every need is, as it were, anticipated in the process of development; and wherever, as in this harmless little tree snake, we find a departure from general rules, it is because some especial requirements are met, and in order that the creature may be the better prepared for the struggle for existence. In the present example we find a marvellous adaptation of spine bones to dental purposes; how many ages it has taken to develop them we cannot conjecture. All we know is that these spinal projections are just the sort of teeth that the egg-swallower requires, and that its natural teeth are gradually becoming obsolete from disuse. A writer who was quoted at some length in the _Zoologist_ for 1875, and in several other contemporary journals, stated that some snakes ‘suck out the contents of hen’s eggs by making a hole at the end.’[12] We are not told with what instrument these evidently scientific serpents punctured the shell. Some skill is required, as schoolboys give us to understand, to prick an egg-shell without breaking it; and even when the hole _is_ bored, additional care is required to suck out the contents. How a snake could first grasp firmly, and then puncture a fowl’s egg, is incomprehensible; how the sucking process is achieved is still more so. We can understand that a snake which discovered a broken egg might seem to lap some of the contents, because, as we shall by and by show, the tongue habitually investigates, and is immediately in requisition under all circumstances. But to lap up an egg would be a very slow process for so slender an instrument. One is reminded of the dinner which Sir Reynard invited his friend the Stork to partake with him.