BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 375 
at not a yard of distance betwixt us, and with a look, rather of 
curiosity than menace, quietly awaited the commencement of 
hostilities on my part, before condescending to betake himself to 
ignoble flight. The wonderful rapidity of the animal’s move- 
ments may be judged of from the fact of his making no 
attempt to uncoil his voluminous folds till the uplifted weapon of 
his assailant was in the act of descending upon him for his 
destruction. I had supposed this reptile might be the same with 
the Black Snake of the West Indies, though the specimens now 
seen far exceeded in length and thickness the largest I had met 
with in Jamaica, where the species so called is by much the most 
frequent of the few Ophidians which inhabit that island; but my 
friend Dr. Holbrook, the eminent herpetologist, tells me he 
believes them to be quite distinct, there being, in his opinion, no 
reptiles common to the West Indies or South America, and any 
part of the United States. The two species certainly agree closely 
in everything but size; are equally bold, fearless, and active, and 
quite prepared to show fight when retreat is impossible, though I am 
not aware that the tropical Snake, like its more gigantic northern 
congener, ever takes the initiative so far as to become the ag- 
gressor on slight provocation, as the same gentleman assures me, 
from his own experience, is sometimes, though rarely, the case 
with the latter, which, in the coupling season, will occasionally 
descend from a tree to pursue and bite any intruder who should 
attempt to molest it. I have good grounds for believing that the 
bite of the North American Black Snake, though devoid of venom, 
is not likely to be less severe than that which the jaws of its more 
diminutive sable and southern relative are capable of inflicting, 
whose teeth (expertus loquor) have an aptitude for vengeful pene- 
tration, that unless the assailant join caution with courage in the 
onslaught, may, unexpectedly, convert the pæans of triumph into 
the wailing accents of discomfiture. Should any of my readers 
desire to make a Black Snake their prisoner, let them take warning 
from the misfortunes of a friend, and beware how they proceed by 
the ordinary process of arrest, to co//ar the caitiff with their bare 
‘VOL. VII. 2U 
