fast which these reptiles are capable of enduring. Dr. Harlan, of Philadelphia, who contributed some valuable observations to the herpetology of America between thirty and forty years ago, mentions having seen on exhibition more than a hundred rattlesnakes, brought chiefly from the State of New York, which were lively and in good condition, although they had been without food for more than six months.
Yet one more story of a snake and a bed. The editor of the “Rappahannock Southerner,” a Virginia paper, writing in September, 1860, says that he was aroused a night or two before by something moving in the bed, apparently between the sheet and the ticking. Supposing it to be a mouse, he arose, procured a light, and made an examination of the bed, when, to his horror, a hooded adder glided from it and disappeared somewhere among the furniture. That editor must have been a trusting man, for he went back to bed, instead of rushing from the house at once and for ever, as most persons, including the writer of this article, would certainly have done. Next day, while sitting in the office adjoining his bed-room, he heard something moving in a waste-paper basket, which, upon examination, turned out to be his unwelcome visitor of the night before. The snake, which was quickly despatched, measured three feet eight inches in length, and four inches in diameter; and the editor, who says that death must have ensued within a few hours had he been bitten by it, vouches for the truth of his story by inviting the curious to come and see the reptile, which was then hanging up in his office.
What the hooded adder mentioned by the Virginia editor is, I do not know. The only snake displaying anything like a “hood” with which I have ever met, is the one known here as the blowing adder, which is not venomous, however, but has a way of inflating its head and neck when irritated, which gives it an extremely vicious and dangerous aspect.
The mystery and dread attaching to the snake family has, in all ages, been a source of apocryphal exaggeration. Most of the American woodsmen with whom I have met in my wanderings have a vague faith in a reptile called by them the hoop snake, which, according to obscure authorities quoted by them—for they never have seen one themselves—resolves itself into a circle when about to attack, and, holding its tail in its mouth, trundles itself like a hoop upon the intruder. They will tell you, even, how the bold hunter will sometimes pass his deer-knife quickly within the circumference of the hoop as it wheels past, so that the snake cuts itself in two upon the blade by its own rash act. It is needless to say that this variety of the serpent tribe is purely imaginary. None of the American naturalists make note of it; nor is the story of its wheel movement worthy of any more credence than the theory surmised by many ancient fishermen about the salmon, which, they tell us, achieves its wonderful acrobatic leaps by catching its tail in its mouth, and suddenly letting go for a spring.
Very like one of these woodsmen’s yarns is the following account of a serpent new to me, as it will probably be to most of my readers. It is taken from a Virginian paper of September, 1859:—
Mr. Samuel Hawkins, living at Mount Crawford, in this State, shot an enormous bull-snake, a fortnight ago, about a mile from Mount Crawford, on what is known as Cedar Ridge. The snake was eleven feet in length, and its body was over a foot in circumference. It was in pursuit of a younger brother of Mr. Hawkins, making a kind of bellowing noise peculiar to this snake, when it was shot. Its teeth were an inch in length.
Now the foregoing, unlike the hoop-snake fables, is entitled to consideration; for, on reference to several authorities, I find that the bull-snake, or, as it is sometimes called, the pine-snake, is no myth, but an “established fact.” It is a large black-and-white snake—the coluber melanoleucus of scientific nomenclature. Bartram, in his “Travels in the Southern States of North America,” describes it as a denizen of the pine-forests of Carolina and Florida; and Daudin states that when irritated it utters a very loud and even frightful sound.
In these latitudes, and in Canada, I know of but two varieties of water-snake, neither of which is venomous. One of these is marked with sooty patches on a somewhat lighter ground; the other striped longitudinally in black and yellow, with a spotted belly. They haunt the borders of sluggish streams and ponds, and live chiefly upon fish. I heard of one killed at Poultney, in the State of Vermont, which, upon being opened, was found to contain ten trout; and I found in the stomach of a large one of the brown variety, a pike, or jack, nearly a foot long.
These snakes may very often be seen sunning themselves upon logs by the margins of sedgy pools, and on being disturbed, they glide as quick as lightning into the water. A good many years ago, as I was fishing for trout along a Canadian river with a friend, he hooked a striped water snake with his fly, as it swam across the stream, landed it with some difficulty, and had a good deal of work in killing it without damaging his tackle, which became involved in a wonderful tangle with the coiling reptile. Once, as I was watching for wild ducks on the margin of a sluggish but clear stream, a small water snake crept close by my foot, and, disturbed by my movement, glided into the water, where it coiled itself upon the pebbly bottom. In a moment it was surrounded by a swarm of minnows, which hovered about it with insulting, fish-saucy gestures, until it was forced again to seek the land as a refuge from its tormentors. This, in the water, was an exact counterpart of what we so often see far up in the air, when a host of small birds harasses the rear of an obnoxious hawk. With regard to these two water snakes I have observed a curious physiological fact—that, upon the same rivers, they inhabit separate districts. And this appears to be in some way connected with the local vegetation. For instance, I have always found the brown water-snake only where the button-wood tree—platanus occidentalis—grows; while, upon the same stream, at localities where that tree disappears, the striped variety alone exists.
In this rambling talk about American reptiles