There is a certain coolness, almost to be called a positive want of
cordiality, between snakes and human beings. More, the snake is never a
social favourite among the animals called lower. Nobody makes an
intimate friend of a snake. Popular natural history books are filled and
running over with anecdotes of varying elegance and mendacity, setting
forth extraordinary cases of affection and co-operation between a cat
and a mouse, a horse and a hen, a pig and a cockroach, a camel and a
lobster, a cow and a wheelbarrow, and so on; but there is never a snake
in one of these quaint alliances. Snakes do not do that sort of thing,
and the anecdote-designer's imagination has not yet risen to the feat of
compelling them, although the stimulus of competition may soon cause
it. The case most nearly approaching one of friendship between man and
snake known to me is the case of Tyrrell, the Zoo snake keeper, and his
"laidly worms." But, then, the friendship is mostly on Tyrrell's side,
and, moreover, Tyrrell is rather more than human, as anyone will admit
who sees him hang boa constrictors round his neck. Of course one often
hears of boys making pets of common English snakes, but a boy is not a
human creature at all; he is a kind of harpy.
[Illustration: LANDLORD.]
[Illustration: LODGER.]
The prairie marmot and the burrowing owl come into neighbourly contact
with the rattlesnake, but the acquaintance does not quite amount to
friendship. The prairie marmot takes a lot of trouble and builds a nice
burrow, and then the owl, who is only a slovenly sort of architect
himself, comes along and takes apartments. It has never been quite
settled whether or not the lodger and the landlord agree pleasantly
together, but in the absence of any positive evidence they may be given
credit for perfect amiability; because nobody has found traces of owl in
a dead marmot's interior, nor of marmot in an owl's. But the rattlesnake
is another thing. He waits till the residence has been made perfectly
comfortable, and then comes in himself; not in the friendly capacity of
a lodger, but as a sort of unholy writter--a scaly man-in-possession. He
eats the marmot's family and perhaps the marmot himself: curling himself
up comfortably in the best part of the drawing-room. The owl and his
belongings he leaves severely alone; but whether from a doubt as to the
legality of distraining upon the goods of a lodger, or from a certainty
as to the lodger's goods including claws and a beak, naturalists do not
say. Personally, I incline very much to the claw-and-beak theory, having
seen an owl kill a snake in a very neat and workmanlike manner; and,
indeed, the rattlesnake sometimes catches a Tartar even in the marmot.
[Illustration: WRITTER.]
[Illustration: IN POSSESSION.]
It isn't terror of the snake that makes him unpopular; the most harmless
snake never acquires the confidence of other creatures; and one
hesitates to carry it in his hat. This general repugnance is something
like backing a bill or paying a tailor--entirely a matter of form.
Nothing else has sympathy with the serpent's shape. When any other
animal barters away his legs he buys either fins or wings with them;
this is a generally-understood law, invariably respected. But the snake
goes in for extravagance in ribs and vertebrae; an eccentric, rakish, and
improper proceeding; part of an irregular and raffish life. Nothing can
carry within it affection, or even respect, for an animal whose tail
begins nowhere in particular, unless it is at the neck; even if any
creature may esteem it an animal at all that is but a tail with a mouth
and eyes at one end. Dignify the mouth and eyes into a head, and still
you have nothing wherewith to refute those who shall call the snake
tribe naught but heads and tails; a vulgar and raffish condition of
life, of pot-house and Tommy-Dod suggestion.
[Illustration: AN EARLY WORM.]
[Illustration: HOW'S THE GLASS?]
[Illustration: THE FASCINATED RAT.]
And this is why nothing loves a snake. It is not because the snake is
feared, but because it is incomprehensible. The talk of its upas-like
influence, its deadly fascination, is chiefly picturesque humbug. Ducks
will approach a snake curiously, inwardly debating the possibility of
digesting so big a worm at one meal; the moving tail-tip they will peck
at cheerfully. This was the sort of thing that one might have observed
for himself years ago, here at the Zoo; at the time when the snakes
lived in the old house in blankets, because of the unsteadiness of the
thermometer, and were fed in public. Now the snakes are fed in strict
privacy lest the sight overset the morals of visitors; the killing of a
bird, a rabbit, or a rat by a snake being almost a quarter as unpleasant
to look upon as the killing of the same animal by a man in a farmyard or
elsewhere. The abject terror inspired by the presence of a snake is such
that an innocent rat will set to gnawing the snake's tail in default of
more usual provender; while a rabbit placed with a snake near
skin-shedding time will placidly nibble the loose rags of epidermis
about the snake's sides.
The pig treats the snake with disrespect, not to say insolence; nothing,
ophidian or otherwise, can fascinate a pig. If your back garden is
infested with rattlesnakes you should keep pigs. The pig dances
contemptuously on the rattlesnake, and eats him with much relish,
rattles and all. The last emotion of the rattlesnake is intense
astonishment; and astonishment is natural, in the circumstances. A
respectable and experienced rattlesnake, many years established in
business, has been accustomed to spread panic everywhere within ear and
eye shot; everything capable of motion has started off at the faintest
rustle of his rattles, and his view of animal life from those
expressionless eyes has invariably been a back view, and a rapidly
diminishing one. After a life-long experience of this sort, to be
unceremoniously rushed upon by a common pig, to be jumped upon, to be
flouted and snouted, to be treated as so much swill, and finally to be
made a snack of--this causes a feeling of very natural and painful
surprise in the rattlesnake. But a rattlesnake is only surprised in this
way once, and he is said to improve the pork.
[Illustration: THE DISRESPECTFUL PIG.]
As a _tour de force_ in the gentle art of lying, the snake-story is
justly esteemed. All the records in this particular branch of sport are
held in the United States of America, where proficiency at snakes is the
first qualification of a descriptive reporter. The old story of the two
snakes swallowing each other from the tail till both disappeared; the
story of the snake that took its own tail in its mouth and trundled
after its victim like a hoop; the story of the man who chopped a snake
in half just as it was bolting a rat, so that the rat merely toddled
through the foremost half and escaped--all these have been beaten out of
sight in America. At present Brazil claims the record for absolute
length of the snakes themselves; but the Yankee snake-story man will
soon claim that record too. He will explain that each State pays a
reward for every snake killed within its own limits; but that there are
always disputes between the different States as to payment; because most
of the snakes killed are rather large, crawling across several States at
once.
[Illustration: "HA!"]
[Illustration: "HO!"]
Here, among a number of viperine snakes of about the same size, is a
snake that lives on eggs. He is about as thick as a lead pencil, but
that doesn't prevent his swallowing a large pigeon's egg whole, nor even
a hen's egg at a pinch. It dislocates his jaw, but that is a part of his
professional system, and when the business is over he calmly joints up
his jaw again and goes to sleep. He is eccentric, even for a snake, and
wears his teeth on his backbone, where they may break the egg-shell so
that he may spit it away. When he first stretched his head round an egg,
the viperine snakes in the same case hastily assumed him to be a very
large tadpole; and since tadpoles are regarded with gastronomical
affection by viperine snakes, they began an instant chase, each prepared
to swallow the entire phenomenon, because a snake never hesitates to
swallow anything merely on account of its size. When finally the
egg-swallower broke the egg, and presented to their gaze the crumpled
shell, the perplexed viperines subsided, and retired to remote corners
of the case to think the matter over and forget it--like the crowd
dispersed by the circulating hat of the street-conjurer.
[Illustration: "MINE!"]
[Illustration: "WHAT!"]
[Illustration: "LAWKS!"]
Familiarity with the snake breeds toleration. He is a lawless sort of
creature, certainly, with too many vertebrae and no eyelids; but he is
not always so horrible as he is imagined. A snake is rather a pleasant
thing to handle than otherwise. Warm, firm, dry, hard and smooth on the
scales, rather like ivory to the touch. He is also a deal heavier than
you expect. When for good behaviour I have been admitted to Tyrrell's
inner sanctum here, and to the corridors behind the lairs, where hang
cast skins like stockings on a line, I have handled many of his pets. I
have never got quite as far as rattlesnakes, because rattlesnakes have a
blackguardly, welshing look that I don't approve. But there is a Robben
Island snake, about five feet long, with no poison, who is very pleasant
company. It is a pity that these snakes have no pet names. I would
suggest The Pirate as a suitable name for any snake from Robben Island.
[Illustration: OLD CLO'.]
[Illustration: WELSHERS.]
For anybody who has been bitten by a cobra, or a rattlesnake, or a
puff-adder, there are many remedies, but few people who can recommend
them from personal experience. It is to be feared that most of them
unfortunately die before writing their testimonials. Perhaps they were
too long deciding which thing to take. The most famous of these
remedies, and probably the best, on the whole, is to get excessively
drunk. It is expensive to get drunk after a poisonous snake-bite,
because something in the veins fortifies the head against the first
bottle or two of whisky. Getting drunk before the bite won't do,
although there would appear to be a very widely prevalent impression
that it will, and a very common resolve to lay up a good store of cure
against possible accidents in the future. This may be misdirected
prudence, and nothing else, but there is often a difficulty in
persuading a magistrate to think so.
[Illustration: DRUNK TOO SOON.]
[Illustration: RESULT.]
The snake _will_ be eccentric, even in the matter of its eggs. Most
snakes secure originality and independence in this matter by laying eggs
like an elongated tennis-ball--eggs covered with a sort of white
parchment or leather instead of shell. All the rest go further, and
refuse to lay eggs at all.
[Illustration: FIRST THIS TIME, I THINK!]
[Illustration: LOR!]
The snake insists on having his food fresh; you must let him do his own
killing. Many carry this sort of fastidiousness so far as to prefer
taking it in alive, and leaving it to settle matters with the digestive
machinery as best it may. A snake of this sort has lost his dinner
before now by gaping too soon; a frog takes a deal of swallowing before
he forgets how to jump.
[Illustration: THE SNAKE THAT GAPED: A MORAL LESSON.]
It is well to remember what to do in case of attack by a formidable
snake. If a boa constrictor or a python begin to curl himself about you,
you should pinch him vigorously, and he will loosen his folds and get
away from you. Some may prefer to blow his head off with a pistol, but
it is largely a matter of taste, and one doesn't want to damage a good
specimen. The anaconda, however, who is the biggest of the constrictors,
won't let go for pinching; in this case the best thing is not to let him
get hold of you at all. Tobacco-juice will kill a puff-adder. If you
come across a puff-adder, you should open his mouth gently, remembering
that the scratch of a fang means death in half an hour or so, and give
him the tobacco-juice in a suitable dose; or you can run away as fast as
possible, which is kinder to the snake and much healthier for yourself.
By far the biggest snake here is the python, in the case opposite the
door; he is more than twenty feet long, and is seriously thinking of
growing longer still. Tyrrell picks him up unceremoniously by the neck
and shoves him head first into a tank of water, when he seems to need a
little stir and amusement. I think, perhaps, after all, the most
remarkable being exhibited in the reptile house is Tyrrell. I don't
think much of the Indian snake-charmers now. See a cobra raise its head
and flatten out its neck till it looks like a demoniac flounder set on
end; keep in mind that a bite means death in a few minutes; presently
you will feel yourself possessed with a certain respect for a
snake-charmer who tootles on a flute while the thing crawls about him.
But Tyrrell comes along, without a flute--without as much as a
jew's-harp--and carelessly grabs that cobra by the neck and strolls off
with it wherever he thinks it ought to go, and you believe in the
European after all. He is a most enthusiastic naturalist, is Tyrrell.
He thinks nothing of festooning a boa constrictor about his neck and
arms, and in his sanctum he keeps young crocodiles in sundry
watering-pots, and other crawling things in unexpected places. You never
quite know where the next surprise is coming from. I always feel
doubtful about his pockets. I shouldn't recommend a pickpocket to try
them, unless he really doesn't mind running against a casual
rattlesnake. Tyrrell is the sort of man who is quite likely to produce
something from his cap and say: "By-the-bye, this is a promising
youngster--death adder, you know. And here," taking something else from
his coat or vest pocket, "is a very fine specimen of the spotted
coffin-filler, rather curious. It isn't _very_ poisonous--kills in an
hour or so. Now, this," dragging another from somewhere under his coat,
"_is_ rather poisonous. Deadly grave-worm--kills in three seconds.
Lively little chap, isn't he? Feel his head." Whereat you would probably
move on.
[Illustration]
_Types of English Beauty._