Charles Dawson Shanly

“ The house snake, of which mention has been made above, is the coluber eximius of naturalists, and resembles, in form and movements, its fellow constrictor, the black snake. Its colours are beautifully arranged, and have a brilliant effect, the upper part of the body being clouded with brown and white, while the belly is marked with black and white lozenges, like a chess-board. This serpent, called in some parts of the States and Canada the milk snake, and sometimes the chicken snake, is often found in cellars and out-houses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fearful that the lady, who was very nervous and delicate in health, might see the reptile, he induced her away on some pretext, and then despatched it. I do not think that these snakes climb trees, like the black snakes, but I have often seen them winding among the cucumber vines and tomato stalks in gardens. So far as being unprovided with poison apparatus, the house snake is a harmless reptile.
Innocuous, or otherwise, however, the members of the wily serpent tribe are anything but eligible bedfellows. ”

“ Before he died his body was covered with livid spots, resembling those on the snake he had killed.
In another paper, the name and date of which I forgot to note, I read of a man upon whose arm, after his death from the bite of a rattlesnake, a perfect representation of the reptile was found, winding spirally from the shoulder to the wrist. Daudin gives seven varieties of the rattlesnake, all furnished with the deadly venom which causes this serpent to be dreaded more than any other upon the continent of America. ”

“ The snake, which was taken dead from the cistern, proved to be seven feet long and had thirteen rattles.
Some of the locust and grasshopper tribes emit sounds so nearly resembling the rattle of the snake, that the unpractised wayfarer is fain to 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. ”

“ It grows, not unfrequently, to the length of six, and even seven feet, and, although generally sluggish in its movements, will sometimes dart away with great rapidity when surprised. A gentleman, long a resident of Canada, told me that one summer, while on a visit to a friend near Niagara, and engaged in conversation with the lady of the house, happening to be looking in the direction of the empty fire-place, he saw one of these snakes unwinding slowly out from the dilapidated masonry, and coiling itself to repose upon the hearth. ”

“ It is a singular fact that persons suffering from delirium tremens in America (where, either from the poisonous adulteration of liquors, or from some other cause not fully established, that form of insanity is much more common than among the tipplers of Europe) invariably imagine themselves beset by snakes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are only a few varieties of venomous serpents in North America, but the whole tribe, whether innocuous or otherwise, is looked upon with suspicion and horror, even by the hard-handed backwoodsmen most accustomed to meet with them. ”

“ It is well known that snakes, when getting rid of the old skin, assist the process by winding among straw or dried herbage, and the one killed upon this occasion was doubtless thus occupied when unconsciously packed in by the negro along with the bedding. ”

“ Six years is certainly a good while to live without food, even for a snake; but there does not appear to be any definite limit as to the length of fast which these reptiles are capable of enduring. Dr. ”

“ This authority states that the men who capture snakes for sale on the islands of Lake George, have such confidence in the remedy referred to, that they feel no concern at being bitten, but will even clamber about among the rocks in their stocking feet, so as to avoid slipping ”