40 BIRDS AND POETS 
put little sandbars between themselves and their 
too loving parents. 
How easily a bird’s tail, or that of any fowl, or 
in fact any part of the plumage, comes out when the 
hold of its would-be capturer is upon this alone; 
and how hard it yields in the dead bird ! No doubt 
there.is relaxation in the former case. Nature says 
to the pursuer, “Hold on,” and to the pursued, 
“Let your tail go.” What is the tortuous, zigzag 
course of those slow-flying moths for but to make it 
difficult for the birds to snap them up? The skunk 
is a slow, witless creature, and the fox and lynx 
love its meat; yet it carries a bloodless weapon that 
neither likes to face. 
I recently heard of an ingenious method a certain 
other simple and slow-going creature has of baffling 
its enemy. A friend of mine was walking in the 
fields when he saw a commotion in the grass a few 
yards off. Approaching the spot, he found a snake 
—the common garter snake—trying to swallow a 
lizard. And how do you suppose the lizard was 
defeating the benevolent designs of the snake? By 
simply taking hold of its own tail and making itself 
into a hoop. The snake went round and round, and 
could find neither beginning nor end. Who was 
the old giant that found himself wrestling with 
Time? This little snake had a tougher customer 
the other day in the bit of eternity it was trying to 
swallow. 
The snake itself has not the same wit, because I 
lately saw a black snake in the woods trying to 
