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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



"THE JOINT-SNAKE IDIOCY." 

 Messrs. Editors : 



IN " The Popular Science Monthly " for 

 December, 1886, Dr. Felix L. Oswald, 

 in discussing "Zoological Superstitions," 

 speaks incidentally oi' the "joint-snake." 

 lie says : 



" The joint-snake idiocy, on the other 

 hand, though knocked to pieces a hundred 

 times, persists in reviving with symbolic 

 promptitude. In the Rocky Mountains, on 

 the lower Mississippi, and all through the 

 southern Allcghanies, farmers and hunters 

 still believe in the self-reconstructive power 

 of a reptile that survives dismemberment, 

 with the facility of a New York tramway 

 ring, and, after picking up a jaw-bone here 

 and a couple of vertebrae there, pursues its 

 way rejoicing, and ready to segregate again 

 at a minute's notice." 



This sneer is the "last straw" which 

 prompts me to relate, for the first time in 

 public, what I know of the joint-snake. I 

 have seen three specimens, all in their na- 

 tive haunts, and all in the meadows of a 

 farm on which I lived but two years of my 

 life. Hence I know that it was within that 

 period that I saw all three of them. It was 

 during the last years of the war. 



I saw them at different times and in dif- 

 ferent places, but no two of the places, I 

 should say, were more than fifty rods apart. 

 I could very nearly locate all three of the 

 places now. I distinctly remember the di- 

 rection each snake was going, the direction 

 it was from me, the order in which I saw 

 them, and what occurred at each observa- 

 tion. I shall briefly relate the circumstances 

 of each case, and the observations made. 



The first was in haying-time. In gather- 

 ing up a forkful of hay to " top out " a wag- 

 on-load, which was just ready to start for 

 the barn, I discovered a snake of a kind I 

 had never before seen. It was not a large 

 snake. I should say it was about the size 

 of the average garter-snake — say, twenty 

 inches long. It was also shaped very like a 

 garter-snake. Its head was noticeably small, 

 and inclined to be square built. It was the 

 most innocent-looking serpent I had ever 

 seen. It was longitudinally striped, of a 

 dull-white and a pretty and decided gray. 



It did not "fly to pieces" when I touched 

 it. I did not strike it hard. The first hint 

 I had that I had caught the far-famed joint- 

 snake was when I saw it lying before me in 

 several joints — I should say five, six, or 

 I then made no further effort to 

 kill it. I bent over it, in the broad daylight 



of high noon, and carefully examined its 

 parts, in spite of the repeated urgent ap- 

 peals of my brother to hurry off to the 

 barn with the load of hay, as it was nearly 

 dinner-time. 



The joints were quite regular in length, 

 and three or four inches long, the head and 

 tail joints being somewhat the shorter. Each 

 joint had at its front end five fleshy pro- 

 cesses, shaped very like a necked strawberry, 

 and apparently fitting into five holes in the 

 rear end of the next anterior joint. The 

 processes were pointed in front, and reached 

 their greatest thickness about a good tenth 

 or an eighth of an inch from their attach- 

 ment to the joint. I distinctly saw and 

 counted the processes, and also the holes 

 into which I supposed they had fitted. It 

 was a neat piece of dove-tailing. 



I put one of the pieces into my pocket, 

 to carry home and save as a curiosity. Then 

 it occurred to me that after all the main point 

 was to see whether the joints would come 

 together again and that the loss of one of 

 its joints might defeat it. So I laid my 

 selected joint down again with the rest, and, 

 carefully marking the spot, went to dinner. 

 That over, I returned to the field and to the 

 marked spot ; but no snake of any kind was 

 there. 



The second time was in another field, 

 also at haying-time, probably a year later. 

 This time I recognized an old acquaintance, 

 and cut him in two about the middle with my 

 scythe. This was also at noon on a bright 

 day, and before going to dinner I laid down 

 my scythe so as to mark the spot. And 

 again, when I returned, there was no snake. 

 I saw him divide into pieces, and saw that 

 I had cut one of the joints in two about the 

 middle. As in the first case, the joints were 

 regular in length and shape, and the con- 

 nections were the same. The proportion 

 of length of joint to length of snake was 

 also the same. I touched the snake in only 

 one place. I let him crawl across my scythe- 

 blade until his middle was on the edge, and 

 then I set my shoe-sole on him and the sharp 

 edge neatly and quickly cut him in two. 

 Then he went to pieces all the way along, 

 and I left him lying untouched. 



The third time was in another field ad- 

 joining that one, and at a different time of 

 the year, on a cloudy day. This time I was 

 older, and quite interested. I could easily 

 have killed him, had he been any kind of a 

 serpent of his size. But this time I was at 

 leisure, and determined to cdve my old friend 

 a very thorough examination. So I looked 



