254 THE RING OF NATURE 



it is a call designed to imitate the shrilling of a 

 grasshopper. The bird or the mouse that is 

 fated to become the rattlesnake's dinner comes 

 to it because it thinks it hears a grasshopper. 

 The snake sees it coming, and its tail vibrates with 

 eagerness for the strike, just as the cat's tail 

 twitches when she is about to make her spring; 

 but in the case of the snake, the more the tail 

 twitches the nearer the bird comes. Afterwards, 

 the snake sets its rattle going whenever it is about 

 to strike anything, whether to eat or by way of 

 self-defence. 



Sometimes there is shown at the Zoo a small 

 snake of the same tribe, but not the same genus as 

 the rattler, which has an equipment of a slightly 

 different kind. As in the rattler, the tail append- 

 age is very different from the next vertebrae. There 

 is a rattle that does not rattle. It is cream or 

 bone-white, and it wriggles just like a white maggot 

 that is for ever crawling out of the grass in which 

 the reptile is coiled, without getting entirely out. 

 It has the flowing movement that we can give to 

 a skipping-rope when one end is free and the other 

 held in the hand. It is in appearance and in 

 motion precisely like a very appetizing grub, 

 whiter than a meal-worm and about as large as 

 a good fat one. If I were a bird, it is perfectly 

 certain that I should want that grub badly, and 

 more than likely that when I went to get it the 

 owner of the tail would get me. 



We have stayed with the horrid beasts long 



