gO 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. Grunther, 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 the 



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, 



