and their Mode of procuring Food, 661 



of Walton, wiser in their generation than the sages of Phila- 

 delphia, never dreamed of taking this animal for a real snake ; 

 knowing full well that snakes are not in the habit of chasing 

 men or women. I was consulted on the important affair ; 

 and I remarked, with great gravity, that there was something 

 very strange and awful in it. " If," said I, " Molly has un- 

 fortunately been interfering with any other woman's witch- 

 craft ; or if she has been writing words with her own blood ; 

 or, above all, if there was a strong smell of brimstone in the 

 lane at the time of the chase, then, and in that case, there is 

 too much reason to fear that the thing which Wilson took for 

 a snake was an imp from the bottomless pit, sent up here, no 

 doubt, by the king of sulphur, on some wicked and mis- 

 chievous errand." Poor old Molly is still alive, but nature 

 is almost done within her; and she is now rarely seen on the 

 cold side of the threshold. Many a time have I bantered 

 old Molly on this serpentine apparition ; but she would only 

 shake her head and say, she wished she had been at home 

 that evening, instead of going up Blind Lane. 

 Walton Hall, Oct 18. 1835. 



[In I. 397. is a statement that two snakes had been cap- 

 tured in water close by Portsmouth ; one in the sea, close by 

 land ; the other in, it appears, the same kind of place. The 

 late Rev. L. Guilding had noted, relatively to this statement, 

 as follows : — " Snakes pursuing their prey on the borders of 

 rivers may often be carried into the sea. I have known the 

 huge Z?oa constrictor washed (with the large cedar tree on 

 which it was lying in ambush) from the banks of some South 

 American river, and wafted by the currents to St. Vincent." 

 — Lansdown Guilding. St, Vincent : , May 1. 1830. 



Notices of snakes being observed in water are given in 

 I. 397.; III. 450. 51Q.; IV. 82. 147, 148. 279,280.474. 

 557. ; V. 387. These are mostly on the species indigenous in 

 Britain, Coluber Mtrix L. In IV. 148. is a statement of 

 the fact of a pike being observed to strike at and seize one, 

 and it was not seen more ; and, besides, of one being found 

 dead, " with a young pike," dead too, " scarce half swallowed, 

 in his throat, the larger portion of the fish protruding out of 

 the snake's mouth." In IV. 280. is a notice of " a very large 

 black snake . . . which lay coiled up among the water-lilies, 

 with his head raised about four inches above the surface, in a 

 small lake in Upper Canada," and a citation of an Indian's 

 testimony that " black snakes " often go into the water, and 

 that " they go a-fishing." 



A Species of large Snake has swallowed a small Alligator, on 



