I have read with much interest the discussion about the joint snake, and
propose to give my experience with it. I have been familiar with the
"joint," or, as we call it here, the "hook-and-eye," snake since I was a
boy.
It is a snake of a brownish-yellow color, and grows to be about three feet
long, but at any stage of its growth it can be unjointed or unhooked. It
is fastened together by a hook-and-eye arrangement, exactly like those
used on ladies' dresses.
On one occasion while out taking a walk I saw a joint snake crawling
slowly along the top of an old stone wall; taking my cane, I gave it a
smart jerk about the middle of the body, and it immediately unhooked into
sixteen pieces, each about two inches long.
Taking the head part and putting it in my hat for safe keeping, I gathered
up the joints, and laying them along in a row in just the reverse order in
which they came apart, with all the eyes in contact, and also the hooks, I
took the head part out of my hat, and laid it alongside of the middle of
the row of joints.
It immediately began to move along the line, and without a moment's
hesitation backed up to the first joint, when a little snap was heard and
the first joint was hooked on. It repeated the process, and in the course
of sixty-five seconds by the watch it was again a complete snake.
Again catching it I took out the ninth joint and also the fourteenth, and
changed places with them, putting the ninth in place of the fourteenth and
then let the snake go on.
He gave one or two wriggles, but finding there was something wrong
commenced examining its joints from his head down, and when he came to the
ninth took it out and laid it on one side, then crawling along the rest of
his joints until he came to where the fourteenth ought to be, but where I
had put the ninth, took that out and hooked it on to the eighth and then
put the fourteenth back in its place, all of which was done in an
incredibly small space of time.
Again I separated him, mixing the joints up promiscuously and hooking them
together, having some difficulty in hooking the tail joint on to the head
part, as the hook and eye did not get very well.
Letting the snake loose, in one hundred and fifteen seconds he was again
properly jointed and I let him go.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._