In the Serpents' Path. 57 



Possibly everybody knows and all are familiar 

 with basking snakes, and have traced their going 

 and coming for years ; but where is all this re- 

 corded ? A species-monger, the value of whose 

 writings consists in his wealth of quotations, com- 

 plains that what any tyro knows has too often 

 been proclaimed as a discovery. This is false, to 

 be sure, but is notwithstanding a suggestive state- 

 ment; for what of the world of not even tyros, 

 the thousands without an inkling of zoologic lore ? 

 They constitute a considerable proportion of the 

 civilized world, savages, I take it, are necessarily 

 naturalists, in the happier sense of that term, and 

 to say to them that all birds cannot fly, and that 

 one kind of fish can climb a tree, is to announce a 

 novel fact, if not to proclaim a discovery. But to 

 come back to the subject of an animal's habits : 

 there is probably not a creature, whether furred, 

 feathered, or scaled, that does not contradict you 

 sooner or later. The farmer, fisherman, or trapper 

 is the man to whom we had better go for informa- 

 tion on special points. Their facts are more readily 

 separated from a fancy than the professional's from 

 a theory. These men will stagger you with the list 



