SNAKES AND LIZARDS
“I propose to-day to undertake the defense of reptiles, which many
people fear and dislike, even look upon with horror. I have shown you
what services are rendered by bats despite the repugnance we feel for
them. These animals, regarded by us as hideous and treated as enemies,
I have brought you to look upon as valuable helpers, veritable swallows
of the night, devoted to the extermination of twilight insects. As soon
as reason illuminates the darkness of prejudice the detested creature
is found to be a very useful animal. In like manner I shall now try to
make you separate the false from the true in respect to the reptiles.
Let us begin with the snake.
“If to explain our dislike for bats we mention their strange and
repulsive appearance, we have not the same excuse in regard to snakes.
Their slender form is not lacking in grace, the suppleness they display
in their undulating movements is pleasing to the eye, and their scaly
skin is decorated with well-defined colors that are prettily arranged.
Our aversion, then, must be otherwise explained. Some serpents are
venomous; they are armed with a formidable and death-dealing weapon.
Certainly it is not for these that I ask your favor. Indeed, if it were
in my power to exterminate them all I would gladly free the earth of
their presence. But others—and these are far more numerous—are not
venomous and consequently are perfectly harmless unless they are large
enough to hurt us by muscular force, which is not rare in the hot
countries of the equator, but never to be feared in our part of the
world, where the largest snake is not so strong as a mere child. Thus
it is that some are much to be feared on account of their venom, while
others, at least those of this region, are not in the least dangerous.
But we are all too prone to lose sight of this difference in serpents.
The evil reputation of the one with venomous fangs is fastened on all
the others, so that we abhor them all alike because we believe them all
to be venomous. In France we have only one venomous serpent, the viper,
and all the others, large as well as small, are perfectly harmless and
we will refer to them simply as snakes.
“In one of our former talks [7] I told you about the viper, describing
its form and coloring, the structure of its venomous apparatus, and the
effects of its bite. I here repeat the principal facts then related, in
order to give you now a connected account of our serpents as a class.
“All serpents dart back and forth between their lips, with extreme
rapidity, something that looks like a black thread, of great
flexibility and ending in a fork. Many persons believe this to be the
reptile’s weapon, the sting, as they call it, whereas in reality it is
nothing but the tongue—a quite inoffensive tongue, which the creature
uses for catching insects to feed upon, and also for expressing in its
own peculiar fashion the passions that agitate it. This last it does by
shooting the tongue swiftly in and out between the lips. All serpents
without exception have a tongue, but in our country it is only the
viper that possesses the terrible apparatus for injecting venom.
“This apparatus is composed, first, of two fangs or long, sharp teeth,
situated in the upper jaw. Unlike ordinary teeth, these fangs are not
fixed firmly in their sockets, but can at the creature’s will stand up
for attack or lie down in a groove of the gum and remain there as
harmless as a stiletto in its sheath. In this way the viper runs no
risk of wounding itself. The fangs are hollow and pierced near the
point with a very small opening through which the venom is discharged
into the wound they give. Finally, at the base of each fang is a small
pocket or sac filled with a venomous liquid. It is to all appearance a
perfectly harmless liquid, odorless and tasteless, so that you would
take it for nothing but water. When the viper strikes with its fangs,
the venom sac discharges a drop of its contents into the tiny channel
perforating the fang, and the liquid is injected into the wound. It is
by mixing with the blood that the venom produces its terrifying
effects.”
“I remember all that very well,” said Jules, “and also what you said
must be done to prevent the mixing of the venom with the blood in
general that circulates through the body.”
“And I also told you that the viper haunts by preference warm, rocky
hills; it lurks under stones and in underbrush. In color it is brown or
reddish, with a dark zigzag stripe along the back and a row of spots on
each side, each spot fitting into one of the angles made by the zigzag
stripe. Its stomach is slate-color and its head rather triangular in
shape, being broader than the neck and running to a blunt point at the
mouth. The viper is timid by nature and attacks man only in
self-defense. Its movements are abrupt, irregular, and sluggish.”
“What does it live on?” Jules inquired. “Does it eat nothing but little
insects that it can catch with its tongue?”
“Its chief food consists of larger prey, which calls for the use of its
venomous weapon. Small field-rats, field-mice, meadow-mice, moles,
sometimes frogs and even toads, are its usual victims. The animal
attacked by the reptile is first stung with the venomous fangs,
whereupon it is immediately overcome with agony. As soon as the prey is
dead the viper twines its folds about the lifeless body, squeezes it
tightly, and subjects it to a sort of kneading process in order to make
it smaller; for the victim must be gulped down in one mouthful even if
it exceeds the serpent itself in size. This preparation finished, the
gullet opens to its utmost width and the two jaws, seeming almost to
fly apart, seize with their sharp teeth, which point backward toward
the throat, the head of the mole or field-mouse or whatever the small
game may be. A flow of saliva then streams over the body to make it
slip down more readily, but it is so large a mouthful that the viper
manages to swallow it only by a violent effort. The throat dilates and
contracts, the jaws move alternately from right to left and from left
to right, to coax the unwieldy mass downward, and so it is that this
laborious swallowing is protracted sometimes for hours, sometimes for a
whole day. Indeed, it not seldom occurs that the forward half of the
prey is already undergoing digestion in the stomach while the hind
quarters still stick in the throat or protrude from the mouth.
“Let us pass on to the common snakes. These have no venomous fangs in
the jaw; their teeth are small and even and lacking in strength, useful
as an aid in holding the captured prey and helping in the swallowing of
it (which is as difficult as with the viper), but incapable of
inflicting a serious wound. These creatures, too, are extremely timid,
fleeing at the slightest alarm; but if retreat is cut off they put on a
bold front to impose on the enemy, coiling themselves in a spiral,
erecting the head, swaying this way and that, hissing, and trying to
bite. There is no need, however, to be afraid; a scratch of no more
importance than a pin-prick would be the worst that could befall one.
You would suffer far greater injury by thrusting your hand into a
bramble-bush.”
“If it isn’t any more dangerous than that,” Jules declared boldly, “I
shan’t mind taking up snakes in my hands.”
“I do not tell you this to encourage you to capture these creatures and
make playthings of them; on the contrary, I wish you to leave them
alone, but I also desire to remove an unwarranted fear, the fear of
snakes that is so prevalent in country districts. Fear, always an evil
counselor, never does a good deed in prompting one to throw stones at a
harmless creature found in a hole in the wall. The passer-by attacks it
with his stick if he sees it crossing the road, and the mower in the
hay-field cuts off its head with his scythe. Were they not listening to
a foolish fear and yielding to an unreasonable dislike, they would
leave the poor thing in peace and no one would be the worse for it, as
snakes not only are harmless, but they render us excellent service by
destroying numerous insects and small rodents such as meadow-mice and
field-mice. From this point of view, snakes deserve protection and not
the hatred that is commonly felt for them.”
“But,” objected Louis, “they say snakes can charm birds by their gaze
and draw them into their open mouth by first overcoming them with their
poisonous breath. Helpless, the bird plunges headlong into the
creature’s horrible gullet.”
“There is a grain of truth in what you say, but far more untruth, the
result of popular superstition which deliberately credits the serpent
with sorcery. In the first place, the breath of a serpent, or of any
reptile whatever, has nothing poisonous about it, nothing magically
attractive, nothing supernatural. You all have too much common sense to
make it necessary for me to dwell on these ridiculous tales. There
remains only the belief that the bird is charmed by the reptile’s hard,
fixed gaze. The marvel of this amounts in reality to very little.
“Some of our snakes are very fond of birds’ eggs. They climb trees,
search out the nests, and eat the eggs when the mothers are not there
to protect them. More than one human nest-robber who thought he was
seizing a jay’s or a blackbird’s brood has put his hand instead on the
cold coiled body of a reptile in the bottom of the nest. I have even
known instances in which the plunderers, seized with horror at this
unexpected encounter, fell backward from the tree-top and did not come
out of the adventure without broken bones. A warning to others. The
larger snakes do not content themselves with eggs, but devour the young
birds as well, even those that are outside the nest when they can catch
them, which fortunately is not easy. Imagine an innocent little bird
surprised by a snake in the underbrush. The poor little thing suddenly
sees before it a mouth horribly wide open and glittering eyes regarding
it steadily. Scared almost to death, the bird loses its head and is
powerless to take flight. In vain it beats its wings, cries
plaintively, and finally falls from the branch, paralyzed and dying.
The monster lying in wait catches the poor thing in its mouth.
“The power to charm that serpents are supposed to have is therefore in
reality only the power so to terrify a bird that it cannot fly. We
ourselves, on being suddenly confronted by an appalling danger—do we
always retain the presence of mind necessary to face it? Are there not
plenty of persons that get bewildered, lose their wits completely, and
make matters worse by acting foolishly? The charm exerted by serpents
all comes down simply to that. I am inclined to believe that a bird, on
being surprised by a snake, usually is able to overcome the first
feeling of terror and to take flight as soon as it sees the reptile’s
horrible gullet yawning to receive the expected prey; and so the
serpent’s attempt to paralyze its victim has a chance to succeed only
with very young and inexperienced birds. What paralyzes with fright an
ignorant young nestling hardly affects a bird that is master of itself;
what terrifies a child or a person of weak character makes little
impression on a man capable of keeping his head in time of danger.
Acquire the habit, children, of keeping calm in times of danger or
excitement, and you will avoid many calamities and escape many perils,
just as the bird that does not lose its head escapes the snake lurking
in ambush to catch it.
“One of our common snakes is the water-snake, so called because it
likes damp places and frequents still water, where it shows itself a
good swimmer in its pursuit of little fish, water insects, and
tadpoles. It lays its eggs usually in dunghills, where they will be
hatched out by the heat. These eggs are of an elongated oval shape,
with a soft shell resembling wet parchment. In size they are about as
large as a magpie’s eggs. They are joined together in a string by a
semi-liquid viscous substance. On stirring a heap of dung, country
people often turn up with their forks these soft-shelled eggs whose
origin is unknown to them and from which, to their great surprise, come
young serpents. They declare them to be roosters’ eggs, unnatural eggs,
magic eggs that produce snakes instead of chickens; and it would be
difficult to convince them that this is not true. As for you, my
children, if you ever happen to hear any one speak of eggs laid by
roosters in dunghills and producing serpents, remember that they are
simply the eggs of the water-snake.
“Put no faith, either, in still another fable current in our villages.
According to this, all snakes have a consuming desire to enter the
mouth and then the body of any one sleeping on the cool grass. To rid
the patient of this inconvenient guest the serpent must be lured from
its retreat by the smell of warm milk. Of course this is pure nonsense,
as no animal can wish to take refuge in the human stomach, where it
would be digested, reduced to pap, by the same process that digests our
bread.
“One often meets in hay-fields or even in hay itself a small reptile
differing from the snake in structure. It is known as the slow-worm or
blind-worm. Its head is small and merges into the body without
narrowing into a neck; furthermore, the tail is blunt, so that the two
ends of the body are of nearly the same shape and leave us for a moment
in doubt as to which is the head and which the tail. The slow-worm is
covered with very smooth and shiny scales. The back is silvery yellow
and marked from one end to the other by three black lines which change,
as the worm grows older, to a succession of dots and even disappear
entirely at last. The stomach is blackish. On being disturbed the
slow-worm forcibly contracts, stiffens, and becomes almost as rigid as
a lizard’s tail.
“Many people believe that this little creature is venomous, and even to
touch it or meet its eye is thought to be very dangerous. But its evil
reputation is quite undeserved. The slow-worm is really the most
harmless of reptiles: it does not even offer to bite in its own
defense, but contents itself with stiffening until it is as rigid as a
wooden rod. It lives chiefly on beetles and earthworms.
“Now to conclude this brief account of snakes: vipers excepted, not one
of our serpents is venomous, none can harm us, the bite of none is in
the least dangerous. Snakes do us no injury whatever; on the contrary,
they help us by destroying a multitude of insects and small rodents.
Let us, then, conquer an unreasonable horror and hatred and suffer
these helpers of ours to live in peace.
“Equal consideration should be shown to lizards, those agile hunters of
insects and even of small fur-bearing game such as rodents. Who does
not know the little gray lizard, lover of sunny walls? It lies in wait
for flies, darting its tongue in and out as if in play; and it ransacks
one hole after another in quest of insects. It is the protector of
wall-fruit.
“When on a fine spring day the sun shines warm on some wall or
hillside, the lizard may be seen stretched out comfortably on this wall
or on the new grass covering the hillside. It steeps itself delightedly
in the healthful warmth; it shows its pleasure by gentle undulations of
its relaxed tail and by its shining eyes; and presently, perhaps, it
darts like an arrow to seize some small prey or to find a spot still
more to its liking. Far from fleeing at the approach of man, it seems
to regard him with friendliness; but at the slightest alarming sound,
as the fall of a leaf, it rolls over, falls, and remains motionless for
some moments, as if stunned by the fall; or else it darts away,
vanishes from sight, reappears, hides again, then comes forth once
more, turns and twists until the eye can hardly follow it, folds itself
over several times, and finally retires to some shelter to recover from
its fright.
“As useful as it is graceful in form, the little gray lizard lives on
flies, crickets, grasshoppers, earthworms, and nearly all insects that
prey upon our fruit and grain; thus it would be much to our advantage
if the species were more widely scattered. The greater our supply of
gray lizards, the faster should we see the enemies of our gardens
disappear.
“The green lizard so common everywhere—in hedges, on the skirts of
woods, in thickets having an undergrowth of wild grass—attains a length
of three decimeters. The back shows an elegant embroidery of green
pearls set off with black and yellow dots. This little creature is
marvelously swift of foot, darting into the midst of underbrush and dry
leaves with a suddenness that always takes one by surprise and causes
at first a little start of fear. When it is attacked by a dog it throws
itself at the assailant’s snout and plants its teeth with such
determination that it will let itself be carried along and even killed
rather than relax its hold. But its bite is not at all venomous; it
merely punctures the skin without leaving in the wound any kind of
poison. In captivity it becomes very tame, very gentle, and willingly
lets itself be handled. Its food consists chiefly of insects.
“The olive-growing districts of France have another lizard, larger,
stronger, heavier, and more squat in form than the common green lizard.
The people of Provence call it the glass-bead, but scientists give it
the name of ocellated lizard from the small black spots scattered like
little eyes (ocelli, in Latin) on the bluish-green background of the
creature’s back. This lizard haunts dry hillsides exposed to the full
heat of the sun. It bores for itself a deep hole in some sandy spot,
generally under the shelter of a projecting stone. Trusting to its
formidable bite, it is very bold. Not only does it leap at dogs’
snouts, but it will even attack man if it finds itself too
hard-pressed. This courage has won for it a terrible reputation among
country people, who think it very dangerous, more venomous than even
the viper.
“Now, Uncle Paul, who knows this lizard as well as he knows the bottom
of his own pocket, who has watched its movements for whole days in
order to learn its habits, who has examined its teeth very carefully so
as to be able to report with authority on its bite, and who has even
let himself be bitten by it in order to leave no doubt on the
subject—Uncle Paul, I say, declares that this dreaded lizard does not
deserve the reputation it bears. It is not venomous in the least; it
bites hard, it is true, nipping the skin and even taking away a piece,
but without poisoning the wound; in a word, it is no more to be feared
than the common green lizard. Its food consists of beetles,
grasshoppers, and small field-rats; and therefore, despite the fear it
inspires, I have no hesitation in placing the ocellated lizard in the
class of helpers.”