6Q OUR REPTILES. 



ing blue ; altogether they are real little beauties.""* 

 Evidently the writer of these lines looked upon his 

 pets with the eyes of a connoisseur, and had they 

 been anything else but snakes no doubt the ladies 

 would have made a rush at him to have secured 

 pets to ornament their boudoirs. Amongst the 

 interesting communications which appeared at the 

 time relative to the Smooth Snake, was one from 

 Dr. Griinther, our best authority in serpent lore. 

 " A large male specimen of this snake," he says, 

 " which I kept for a long time on account of its 

 tameness, fed exclusively on lizards, never on mice 

 or frogs. After having fed it for some time with 

 ordinary-sized lizards, proportionate to the size of 

 the snake, I brought a very large specimen of 

 Lacerta agilis to its cage, in order to try the 

 strength of the snake. The lizard was immediately 

 seized; but after a long fight, during which tlie 

 lizard several times appeared to be entangled in the 

 writhings of the snake, always managing, however, 

 to free its head which had been seized by the snake, 

 the latter changed the point of attack, and got hold 

 of the tail of the lizard. This, of course, broke off, 

 and was devoured by the snake. From this time 

 the snake always seized the tails of the lizards given 

 him for food, without further attacking them ; nor, 



* The Field, October, 1862. 



