SNAKES. 443 



the United States, to deter her grandchildren from straying into the 

 wilds. The account of the rattlesnake's amours is an idle fabrication 

 as old as die hills. When I was a lad, it was said, how that, in the 

 plains of Cayenne, quantities of snakes were to be seen knotted 

 together, and how that, on the approach of man, they would immedi- 

 ately dissolve company, and make the rash intruder pay for his 

 curiosity far more severely than Diana of old made Actseon pay for an 

 ill-timed peep. She merely changed the hunter into a stag: they 

 chased the man, and barbarously stung him to death. 



When a man is ranging the forest, and sees a serpent gliding 

 towards him (which is a very rare occurrence), he has only to take 

 off in a side direction, and he may be perfectly assured that it will 

 not follow him. Should the man, however, stand still, and should 

 the snake be one of those overgrown monsters capable of making a 

 meal of a man, in these cases, the snake would pursue its course ; 

 and when it got sufficiently near to the place where the man was 

 standing, would raise the fore-part of its body in a retiring attitude, 

 and then dart at him and seize him. A man may pass within a yard 

 of rattlesnakes with safety, provided he goes quietly but should he 

 irritate a ratttlesnake, or tread incautiously upon it, he would infallibly 

 receive a wound from its fang ; though, by the by, with the point of 

 that fang curved downwards, not upwards. Should I ever be chased 

 by a snake, I should really be inclined to suspect that it was some 

 slippery emissary of Beelzebub ; for I will forfeit my ears, if any of 

 Dame Nature's snakes are ever seen to chase either man or beast. 

 They know better than to play pranks, which the dame has peremp- 

 torily forbidden. 



In the village of Walton there is a cross road known by the name 

 of Blind Lane. One summer's evening, as an old woman, named 

 Molly Mokeson, was passing up the causeway in this lane, a man, 

 by name Wilson, saw a snake gliding onwards in the same direction. 



" Molly," said he, " look ! there 's a snake running after you." She 

 turned her head to see what was the matter ; and, on observing the 

 snake approaching, fear " seized her withered veins." After getting 

 some twenty yards farther up the causeway, she took refuge in a 

 neighbour's house, and sat down in silent apprehension, not having 

 breath enough to tell her troubles. In the meantime, Wilson had 



