12 INTRODUCTION, 



excuse that his children would not look at the magazine with 

 a snake in it. 



Perhaps this is not so surprising when we reflect that 

 until within a late date snakes in children's books, if repre- 

 sented at all, are depicted as if with full intent of creating 

 horror. They are represented with enormously extended 

 jaws, and — by comparison with the surrounding trees or 

 bushes — of several hundred feet in length ; sometimes 

 extending up a bank or over a hedge into the next field, or 

 winding round a rock or a gnarled trunk, that must be — if 

 the landscape have any pretensions to perspective — a long 

 way off Slender little tree snakes of two or three feet long 

 are represented winding round and round thick stems and 

 branches strong enough to support you. Into the chasm of 

 a mouth from which an enormous instrument (intended for a 

 tongue) is protruding, a deer the size of a squirrel (by com- 

 parison), or a squirrel the size of a mouse, is on the point of 

 running meekly to its doom. 



No wonder children ' skip ' the few pages devoted to 

 snakes in their natural history books, and grow up full of 

 ignorance and prejudices regarding them. In no class of 

 literature are original and conscientious illustrations more 

 required than to replace some of those which reappear again 

 and again, and have passed down from encyclopaedias into 

 popular works, conveying the same erroneous impressions 

 to each unthinking reader. 



The strongly - expressed opinions of publishers con- 

 vinced me that the prejudices of adults must first be 

 overcome before children could be persuaded to look 

 at a snake as they would look at a bird or a fish, or to 



