花园中的蛇蛋（谜底） 2010年8月23日，星期一

话说花园中发现几个蛋, 我们认为是蛇蛋(请先阅读前一篇博文“花园中的蛇蛋？”)。我给Froglife打了电话并发了照片给他们确认。他们说grass snake的蛋(英国蛇中唯一会产蛋的是grass snake)一般会产在堆肥堆的中间，这样可以保持温度，而且蛋的尺寸（最长处）不会超过3cm，建议我们把花园里的蛋拿出来看看。

Froglife的Email:

Hello xx,

Thanks for sending the photo. It’s hard to tell but I don’t think these are snake eggs. There’s no scale in the photo so it’s hard to judge how big they are but if your estimate of 5cm is accurate then they would be too big. Also, grass snakes tend to lay their eggs right in the middle of the compost heap where it will keep a constant temperature and the eggs will be protected. I’d suggest you carefully try and get one out to have a proper a look at it, although I understand this might not be possible. If you can and they do turn out to be smaller (2-3cm) then it’s possible they could be grass snake eggs. Grass snakes are completely harmless so you do not need to worry about having these present in your garden (www.froglife.org/animals/grasssnake.htm).

If you can get a better look and they still appear to be 5cm then perhaps you could try uploading a photo to this website: http://www.ispot.org.uk/ – this is a communal website where people will help you identify what you’ve found. I’m really not sure what else would lay eggs in a compost heap. Perhaps they will turn out to be mushrooms after all!

Sorry not to be more help.

Best wishes,

xx

于是我老公就准备去量蛋的尺寸。我们三个女的（我和两个女儿）被要求呆在家里，两个男的（我老公和公公）去花园执行任务。我老公说万一惊动蛇，说不定还是非英国蛇呢，危险，他还把门也给我们关上了。他们带了尺子，五毛钱的硬币（据说grass snake的蛇蛋跟五毛钱的硬币一样大），我还让他们带了手电筒，据说用光照蛋有时可以看到里面的东西。田田对爸爸说你一定要拍照，最好能拍到蛇。我给田田和洋洋搬了张椅子放在窗前，她们就趴在窗上看。田田说：“我看到爸爸的脚”。过了一会儿，看到我公公用树枝在草丛里戳了几下，然后回来了。

“发现什么了？”我连忙问，“是鸡蛋。”我老公说，不是开玩笑吧，有这么大的鸡蛋？事实上是鸡蛋壳，以前住的人吃了鸡蛋后把蛋壳一层层套在一起，再放在堆肥堆里，就成了我们看到的巨蛋！

有惊无险，我们家也借此学了点英国蛇的知识。我老公还看了一些BBC上关于英国蛇的专题片，告诉我英国的三种本地蛇里grass snake最普遍(花园中基本是这种蛇)，smooth snake在英国很罕见，连摸一下蛇都要license! 两个女儿也趁此看了专题片，田田说她如果当蛇的话要当Adder(英国蛇中唯一的毒蛇)，洋洋说如果当蛇的话她要当好蛇（不会吃人的蛇）。