386 %oology, 



steps. Whether it had caught any beetles or spiders in the 

 cellar, I cannot say ; but it looked as fierce as a hawk, and 

 hissed and shook its tongue, as in open defiance. I could 

 not think of hurting it by smoking it out with tobacco or 

 brimstone ; but called it my fiery dragon which guarded my 

 ale cellar. At length I caught it, coiled up on one of the 

 steps. I put it again into an American flour barrel ; but it 

 happened not to be the same as he had been in, and I ob- 

 served a nail protruding through the staves about half way 

 up. This, I suppose, he had made use of to help his escape; 

 for he was missing one morning about ten o^clock : I had seen 

 him at nine o'clock ; so I thought he could not be far off. I 

 looked about for him for half an hour, when I gave up the 

 hunt in despair. However, at one o'clock, as the men were 

 going from dinner, one of them observed the rogue hiding 

 himself under a stone, fifty yards from the house. " " Dang 

 my buttons," said he, " if here is not master's snake." He 

 came back and told my wife, w^ho told him to go and kill it. 

 It happened to be washing-day : the washerwoman gave him 

 a pailful of scalding soapsuds to throw on it; but whether he 

 was most afraid of me or of the snake is still a question : 

 however, the washerwoman brought it home with the tongs, 

 and dropped it into the dolly-tub. It dashed round the tub 

 with the velocity of lightning ; my daughter, seeing its agony, 

 snatched it out of the scalding liquid, but too late : it died in 

 a few minutes. I was not at all angry with my wife : I had 

 had my whim, and she had had hers. 1 had got all the 

 knowledge I wanted to get ; I had learned that it was of no 

 use for a human being, who requires food three times a day, 

 to domesticate an animal which can live weeks and months 

 without food : for, as the saying is, " Hunger will tame 

 any thing ; " and without hunger you can tame nothing. I 

 have also learned that the serpent, instead of being the em- 

 blem of wisdom, should have been the emblem of stupidity. 

 Sir, yours, &c. — John Howden, Near Cheadle^ Staffordshire, 

 The stench emitted by the common snake, when molested, 

 is superlatively noisome ; and is given off so powerfully and 

 copiously, that it infects the air around to a diameter of 

 several yards. This I witnessed on observing a bitch dog kill 

 a rather large snake ; in which act two points beside the odour 

 effused were notable. The coils of the snake formed, as it 

 were, a circular wall ; and in the circular space between it, 

 the snake sunk its head, as if for protection. The dog's efforts 

 were to catch and crush the head ; and, shrivelling up her 

 fleshy lips, "which all the while ran froth," she kept thrusting 

 the points of her jaws into the circular pit aforesaid, and 



