LESSON XL.
OUR COMMON ENEMY.
“Within the shadow of the shipI watched their rich attire,Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,They coiled and shone, and every trackWas a flash of golden fire!”
“Within the shadow of the shipI watched their rich attire,Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,They coiled and shone, and every trackWas a flash of golden fire!”
“Within the shadow of the shipI watched their rich attire,Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,They coiled and shone, and every trackWas a flash of golden fire!”
“Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire,
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and shone, and every track
Was a flash of golden fire!”
—Coleridge.
One day while sitting at dinner I heard a loud outcry from some bluebirds, especial pets of mine, which had their nest in a little grove of dwarf oaks near my house. Hurrying out to inquire into the troubles of my favorites, I saw the mother bird sitting on a twig, her wings dropped wide and slack, her tail drooping, her head stretched forward, quivering with fear; the father bird was flying about crying wildly, while on a limb of the oak, and approaching the nest, was a large black snake. The nest was full of nearly hatched eggs.
To throw a big stone at the snake was the first performance.Then some one ran for a cane to beat the monster; but the snake had concluded that discretion was the better part of valor, and waited only to receive one good blow, before he glided off among the bushes so swiftly that we could not find him. Where these big climbing snakes are numerous, the birds have a hard time to raise a brood, for the snakes destroy the nests, and devour alike parents and fledglings.
Except for their attacks on the birds, tree-climbing snakes are usually of the harmless kind, and are sometimes even useful. There is, however, a tree snake in hot countries, which seems to have a spiteful disposition, and darts from the branches at the eyes and faces of passers-by, often inflicting a sharp, though not poisonous wound.
I once formed the acquaintance of a girl who acted as “snake-charmer” in a museum. She astonished the public by going into a glass cage filled with snakes, which she handled and played with. She held the snakes in her lap, twined them about her neck and arms, and made free with them in many ways. She told me confidentially, that while these snakes looked as if they were terrible monsters, they were the most of them fangless and of harmless varieties. Those which were of poisonous species had been rendered safe playthings by having their fangs cut out.
The poisonous snakes have a poison sac or bag, which empties into a little duct or canal running along each side of the jaw to a large tooth or fang; by an action of the throat muscles, the serpent presses poison from the sac through the canal, and ejects it through the tooth as it bites. By cutting out the fangs the snake is rendered harmless, but only forthe time being. The poison apparatus reproduces itself, and unless the process of growth is watched and the fang again cut out, the lately harmless snake may suddenly become harmful, and the snake-charmer be fatally wounded.
“The poisonous ones do not keep from biting because I charm them, or because they like me,” said the snake-charmer frankly. “Snakes never know or like anybody, so far as I can see; it is only that they can’t bite, that’s all. Folks think the snakes love me because they coil about me. It is only because I am warm that they do that. They are cold creatures, the snakes, and they like the heat of my arms, neck, and lap, that’s all.”
Among the snakes without poison glands are the pythons, the species that watches over and incubates its eggs. The mother python coils herself round and over the eggs, and for three months retains this position, until the little ones are hatched. She seems to be very fond of her young, and is the model mother of all the snake tribe. The larger pythons eat birds, cats, rabbits, hares, frogs, and dogs. They seldom meddle with human beings in any way. The sand snakes are nearly related to the pythons and are also non-poisonous.
The largest of all snakes, the boa-constrictor, belongs to the same sub-order as the python, and would be harmless if it were not for its rabid appetite, which tempts it to devour every living thing which it sees, while its great strength enables it to master almost any prey. Thus it will wind about a man, an ox, or a horse, and crush such victims to death, and feed upon them at leisure. The boas and most of the pythons are natives of hot countries.
A man who had long been a sailor gave me an account of the capture of a boa-constrictor, which is now in the London Zoological Garden. This sailor wanted to go to the interior of the island of Java, to see the country. When he landed in Java he met an English gentleman, Sir Henry ——, who was fond of travel and hunting, and had come to Java intending to capture some wild animals to present to the Regent’s Park Zoological Garden. A rajah of Java had invited Sir Henry to go to his bungalow in the central part of the island, and have a big hunt. Sir Henry offered to take the sailor along to aid him. They caught a tiger and several other beasts, and I will describe to you the way in which they captured a boa-constrictor.
They found a place in the forest, where the crushed grass and brush showed that a boa frequently passed by. Then at evening, they fastened a goat to a tree that its crying might attract the big snake. For two or three nights something carried off the goat, or it managed to escape. Finally they chained the goat. The hunters were watching and waiting some way off. At last they heard cries from the goat, which cries the natives said meant that a snake was coming. Then all was still, and they said that meant that the boa was eating the goat.
Accordingly they hurried to the spot. There, stretched out his full length, lay a huge boa; he had swallowed the goat, which distended the front part of his body so that he would have had hard work to move, even if he had not been held by the chain attached to the swallowed goat. This chain was fastened to a plane tree, and held the boa fast,as he could not disgorge the goat. The boa does not dismember or chew its food; it crushes it, and swallows it whole. Then it lies quiet, and waits for the mass to digest. Thus the boa was captured by the chain down its throat.
Several strong natives now leaped upon the monster’s tail and held it down. Others laid a long, thick bamboo on each side of the boa, from head to tail. Then with strong, new ropes they wound and bound the snake to the bamboos until he was stiffly imprisoned. Next they released the chain from the tree, and left the end dangling from the snake’s greedy mouth. Then a dozen or more strong natives picked up the bamboo sticks, with the great serpent between them, and marched off to the coast, where a cage had been prepared for it on an English ship.
The sub-order which includes the greatest snakes in the world, as the boas, pythons, and anacondas, includes also some of the very smallest, tiny creatures not over an inch in diameter and a few inches in length. These snakes exhibit every variety of color and marking,—green, gold, crimson, white, black, brown, violet, yellow; they gleam in the splendors of the rainbow.
I remember once on a crest of the Lehigh Mountains I was looking up some of the lower vertebrates, when, happening to glance over the side of a big stone on which I was sitting, I saw the most beautiful little snake that I could imagine. It was coiled up in the sun, and was only about ten inches long, and less than one inch in diameter. It was of a vivid emerald green color, and as the sun touched itstiny scales they seemed bordered and powdered with gold. The under part of its body paled to pea green and silver white, a few dots of red glittered about its neck and shoulders, like coral beads. Its wide-open mouth was reddish and bordered with yellow. Its tiny tongue played like lightning to and fro, caught the sunshine, and gleamed as if dipped in gold. Alarmed at seeing me, and afraid to leave its retreat on the sunny side of the stone, it erected its head with a low hiss, darted it from side to side, and seemed to try to frighten me away.
Almost as pretty as this little dweller on the mountains are some of the water snakes, which are often iridescent, and change in tints of red, purple, crimson, orange, and green. Good swimmers and fishers, they pass a happy life among the lily-pads.