440 SNAKES. 



ascending trees, which has been confirmed." Now, a great part of 

 that account by Audubon consists of the description of a rattlesnake 

 chasing a squirrel up and down a tree. Does Mr Taylor wish us to 

 understand that this part of the account has been confirmed by him? 

 I ask this necessary question, because I cannot suppose that Mr 

 Taylor would spend his time in repeatedly endeavouring to verify the 

 simple fact that rattlesnakes ascend trees. The fact is already as 

 well established as is the existence of the rattlesnake itself. The 

 merest novice in zoology must know that the muscular power in the 

 bodies of snakes enables them to ascend trees. I anxiously wait for 

 Mr Taylor's reply. If he has actually seen a rattlesnake chasing its 

 prey up and down a tree, then I will own that I have hitherto been 

 completely in the dark with regard to snakes ; and that all the time 

 which I have spent in studying their habits, while I was in the forests 

 of Guiana, has been unprofitable and of no avail. If, on the con- 

 trary, Mr Taylor informs us that his experience goes no further than 

 to verify the fact that snakes do get up into trees, then I take the 

 liberty to remark that he has told us nothing new. 



I have been in the midst of snakes for many years : I have observed 

 them on the ground, on trees, in bushes, on bedsteads, and upon old 

 mouldering walls ; but never in my life have I seen a snake pursue 

 a retreating prey. I am fully satisfied, in my own mind, that it is 

 not in a snake's nature to do so. A snake would follow its retreating 

 prey in a tree with just about as much success as a greyhound would 

 follow a hare through the mazes of a thick wood. Snakes are always 

 in a quiescent state just before they seize their prey; and their mode 

 of capturing it is by an instantaneous spring, consisting of a bound 

 which never exceeds two thirds of the length of the reptile's body. 



As we are now on snakes, and as Mr Taylor informs us that the 

 names of his birds and animals "are corrected from the splendid 

 work of Audubon," I beg leave to draw his particular attention to 

 plate 21 of that work. It represents a rattlesnake attacking a 

 mocking-bird's nest. Mr Swainson, in his critique upon it in " The 

 Magazine of Natural History " (i. 48, 49), seems lost in admiration at 

 its excellence. He says (after lauding plate 17), "The same poetic 

 sentiment and masterly execution characterises this picture." " Pic- 

 toribus, atque poetis," &c The mouth of the rattlesnake is wide- 



