tread cautiously on hearing their whirr in the briars and dead grass. This was rather unpleasantly experienced in September, 1860, by John Falk, a resident of Guyan, in the state of Ohio, who, one hot night, was aroused by his wife and asked to kill a locust, which annoyed her with its droning whirr. On procuring a light, no locust, but a rattlesnake, three feet long, was discovered in the bed, and despatched immediately.
A friend of mine, who lived for ten years in California, where the largest and most formidable kind of rattlesnake—the crotalus horridus of the herpetologist—is rather common, told me the following story. He was about leaving a spot where he had been encamped for some weeks, when, in getting his traps together, he missed some small article, for which he instituted a search by tossing up and removing the twigs of hemlock pine which had for some time formed his couch. This process revealed to him the horrible fact of two huge rattlesnakes coiled up under the thick, matted twigs, where they had probably been for weeks!
I saw exhibited here, not long since, a pair of those singular burrowing owls, said to dwell in amity with the rattlesnake and the marmot, called the prairie dog, in the holes excavated by the latter. The association in question has been doubted; but many recent investigators have ascertained it to be a fact, though it is difficult to conceive why such a strange partnership should be entered into, or to imagine the terms of it.
The rattlesnake of the prairie is a small variety, certainly; and yet we have seen instances of the power of glutition in snakes, from which it might be inferred that either a prairie dog or a burrowing owl would only make a reasonable meal for one of these undesirable lodgers. I find in an American paper a paragraph stating that on the 26th of August, 1860, one Frederick Collins killed, at Lime Rock, a rattlesnake forty-two inches long, which had a red squirrel in its stomach. The next day, at the same place, Albert Thorp killed one forty-four inches long, which was found to contain a rabbit. Bosc, the traveller, mentions that he took an American hare from the stomach of one killed by him. The burrowing owls referred to are quaint-looking little fellows, with naked and rather long legs, which makes them look as if they had gone into the stork business for a while, but were coming gradually back to owling it again.
In many parts of the United States and Canada there is a swift, bold snake to be met with, commonly called the black snake. It often attains the length of seven feet, and I heard of one killed in Western Canada that measured nine. It is of a blueish-black colour on the back; and slate blue beneath, with a white ring upon the neck, and some white about the muzzle. This serpent, coluber constrictor, is not furnished with venom, but disposes of its prey by pressure, like the rest of the constrictor tribe. Some writers state that the black snake, or racer, as it is called in some of the Western States, will not attack a man; but there are numerous well authenticated instances to the contrary. Daudin records that cases have occurred of its coiling itself around a man’s legs with such strength as to prevent him from walking, whence it was called le lien by the early French explorers. Here is a specimen of what this serpent can do in the constrictor line, as related by the “Traveller,” of the 12th of June, 1861, a journal published at St. Joseph, in the state of Michigan. The kind of snake referred to is, I have reason to believe, either identical with, or very similar to, the one commonly called the black snake.
“While crossing a piece of marshy ground bordering on the northern bayou near this village, in company with a small boy, the sheriff discovered two large blue racer snakes just ahead of him, and although armed with nothing but an insignificant stick, he resolved at once to endeavour to despatch the monsters. Therefore, by describing a circle, he headed them off, and hemmed them in next to the water, which this species of reptile dislikes exceedingly; but as he approached nearer and nearer, the largest one, head erect, turned upon him, and in an instant coiled its strong sinewy body about his legs with such tenacity that it was impossible for him to move from his tracks, without falling over. But, in spite of this predicament, the sheriff was not so much alarmed until he saw the other snake, which had meantime been running from side to side, suddenly start towards him, and, with the quickness of lightning, leap upon him, catching his arm in its embrace, and binding it to his body as firmly as if it had been secured with chains of steel, and, of course, notwithstanding he strained every nerve in the effort, he could not release it. With his left hand he drew a sheath knife from the breast pocket of his coat, and made short work of severing the coils of his disagreeable foes. The largest of these monsters measured seven feet four and a-half inches, and the other five feet eight inches in length. The sheriff says that it seemed to him that the terrible embrace of the large reptile was equal to the strength which two men could bring to bear on a rope about a person’s limbs, and was extremely painful; while the quickness of their movements was indeed astonishing. He brought away their heads as trophies of his victory.”
In the “New York Tribune,” of the 29th of July, 1859, I find a paragraph stating that, as Lieutenant Garrabrant, of the Newark police, was walking in Elm Street, Newark, a few days previously, he was attacked by a large black snake, which he succeeded in shaking off and killing with some difficulty. Newark is a city of about 80,000 inhabitants, nine miles from New York, and the encounter referred to took place, probably, outside the city bounds. Another paper stated, about a year since, that a good deal of excitement was caused near Rochester, in the State of New York, by the fact of cattle being found dead near a swamp haunted by large black snakes with yellow rings about their necks. Marks upon the cattle led to the suspicion that they had been fastened upon and strangled by these snakes, the description of which nearly coincides with that of the coluber constrictor, already mentioned, although the latter does not usually frequent swamps. I have often killed them, however, when