The Rat Snakes or Colubers 



skilfully burrowed out a hollow in the gravel by pushing it out 

 with the sides of her body. This shovelling process consumed 

 fully an hour. The eggs adhered in a cluster and for long intervals 

 the snake would coil under the bank and over the eggs as if to 

 protect them. Eleven weeks after, these eggs began to hatch. 



The theory of fascination as relating to snakes is interesting 

 from the standpoint of the many sensational stories emanating 

 from the belief that the reptiles exert a hypnotic power in obtain- 

 ing birds and small mammals. Certain observers insist that 

 they have seen the snake robbing a bird's nest and after the 

 young have been swallowed, the parents fluttered closer and 

 closer, seemingly drawn toward the reptile's jaws by an irresistible 

 power to finally share the fate of the offspring. But this is 

 easily explained. 



When a snake robs a nest there is naturally a display of 

 defence on the part of the old birds. In their persistent efforts 

 to drive the intruder away, they are frequently bold enough in 

 their advances to peck at the snake's head, when they are seized 

 and eaten. The fluttering toward the snake displays merely 

 the parent's frenzied attempts to protect the home and young. 



There are few of us that have gone into the woods that have 

 not noticed the fluster raised by the parent birds when an intruder 

 approaches the nest. Flying down from branch to branch, until 

 they are but a few feet over one's head, they watch every move- 

 ment of the person beneath. Their actions are very similar to 

 those displayed in the case of the prowling snake, only from the 

 human, they naturally keep a greater distance — with the reptile 

 they are much bolder. 



While rowing along a creek in Connecticut, the writer ob- 

 served an example of "charming" on the part of a snake. Hear- 

 ing a great chatter raised by a blackbird, he beheld a large water 

 snake stretched lazily on a bush and within a few feet of the 

 bird's nest. Water snakes do not eat birds and the serpent had 

 climbed into the bush for the sole purpose of a sun-bath. Flut- 

 tering back and forth in front of the reptile, the mother en- 

 deavoured to drive the serpent away, but to no avail. At length 

 she flew directly toward the intruder and perched upon a branch 

 not a foot from the snake's head, where she danced about and 



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