3o8 SNAKES. 



If all the venomous serpents were thus beneficently armed 

 (the cobras of India especially), the crusade against snakes 

 would be at an end, or never need have been instituted ; for 

 supposing the heedless loiterer to have been a bird, squirrel, 

 guinea-pig, or any of the lesser mammalia which form the 

 food of most snakes, these happy creatures would have had 

 the world to themselves long ago, while vipers had kindly 

 starved themselves out of all traces. 



'Every creature of God is good,' we must repeat and 

 ponder over. Even a deadly rattlesnake, and every part of 

 that rattlesnake, has its appointed use. 



The 'inadvertence' (in this instance on the part of the 

 writer who thus expressed himself) has not been without 

 its use as well, for a more careful attention has been given 

 to the rattle in consequence ; and much controversy has 

 since arisen among some of the ablest herpetologists, parti- 

 cularly in America, where much that was new and suggestive 

 soon found its way into the scientific journals. 



Briefly to summarize some of the arguments, I will repeat 

 a few of them as suggested by some well-known naturalists. 

 In that able periodical, the American Natic7'alist, vol. vi. 1872, 

 the subject was thoroughly discussed. Professor Shaler, 

 in a paper on ' The Rattlesnake and Natural Selection,' 

 admitted that whereas he had hftherto thought and taught 

 that the rattle did more harm than good to its owner, he 

 now knew that the sound is so similar to that of the stridu- 

 lating insects upon which some birds feed, that he had no 

 doubt of its use in attracting these to the snake. He himself 

 had mistaken the sound for a locust. ' Does it invite its 

 enemies or entice its prey } ' he asks. ' Those snakes that 



