Oct. 2, 1879] 



NATURE 



529 



immediately assumed this figure, and then began to fly about in 



'1 directions, requiring some trouble and agility in re-collecting 

 1 iiem. I analysed their progression carefully, and found it to be 

 both progressive and retrograde, the former predominating. The 

 body at B seemed to become rigid for a second, allowing the 

 upper part A to be thrown, not crawled, forward, and thus for a 

 second the animal was straight ; then A, with a slight retrogres- 

 sion, became rigid, and D advancing, the animal assumed the 

 shape shown. It advanced with astonishing rapidity by a series 

 of jerky undulations. In fact, making full allowance for friction, 

 the snake swam on land, and its rib Itgs were of no use what- 

 ever to it in progression. 



Now let me say a few words about the small snake in the glass 

 jar, and I shall then be in a position to advance my ideas about 

 anguine locomotion. As before mentioned, I placed the little 

 creature (a harmless one) in a large glass jar ten inches high, 

 and stretching a bit of coarse muslin over its broad mouth, 

 secured it by an elastic band. A day or two after, I was much 

 surprised to find my snake gone, and more so to find the muslin 

 band and elastic ring intact. No one had touched the jar, for a 

 wholesome dread of snakes existed in the house, but yet the little 

 animal had disappeared. On closer examination I discovered it 

 coiled outside the neck of the jar below- its lip, and between the 

 muslin and the glass, thus — 



,!/;'!' 



% 



How did it get there ? 



Deeply interested, I replaced the snake in the jar, and care- 

 fliUy watched its attempts to resume its strange position. 1 

 found it had no difficulty in ascending the side of the jar and 

 standing erect on its tail, and its movement in doing so was 

 graceful, unconstrained, and directly upwards. Watching more 

 closely, / saw the snake distinctly adhering to the glass, its ab- 

 dominal scales creating a vacuum exactly like the pedal scales of 

 the common house-lizard. There was not a doubt of it, and I 

 felt quite satisfied as to how snakes get into the strange localities 

 in which they are found out here, and which I shall presently 

 describe. 



In many native huts you find cupboards extemporL«ed by 

 building round earthen pots, called gbarrahs, into the mud walls, 

 their mouths being flush with the smooth plastered walls, 

 and about four feet from the ground, and one from the slojie of 

 the thatched or tiled roof. Cobras often are found coiled up in 

 these pots, and the first intimation is the fatal strike at the hand 

 of any one nimmaging in the pots. How did the snake get 

 there ? " OfT the roof to be sure ; " but how did it get on to the 

 roof of an isolated hut with smooth mud walls? How did the 

 deadly kcrarts get up into my bookshelves, where I have often 

 found them coiled up on my books. Of the deadly snakes, this 

 il the only one of a literary turn, and it is frequently found among 



books, a rather dangerous haunt for those who frequently refer 

 to them. How did the cobra get into the double roof of my 

 brougham, and frighten my wife out of her wits by wishing to 

 share its interior with her? How did another get into the sleeve 

 of my wife's dress, which was hanging two feet from the ground, 

 on a wall peg ? 



I believe terrestrial snakes move in one or other'of the follow- 

 ing ways : — 



1. On smooth plane surfaces, by means of their rib legs ; e.g. 

 the boa. ^ 



2. Through high grass, by a rapid, almost invisible, sinuous 

 onward movement, as the hydrophidie in water ; e.g. the rat 

 snake. 



3. Climbing trees, or ascending smooth surfaces by erecting 

 their abdominal scales (for climbing) or using them to produce 

 a vacuum, as lizards do their foot scales for ascending smooth 

 surfaces, e.g. tree snakes and cobras in native cupboards. 



Deglutition in Snakes. — Soon after the capture of my little 

 snake of the glass jar, I presented it with a frog, and watched pro- 

 ceedings. And here let me note that the snake was 9 inches long, 

 with a delicate little head not \ an inch broad, while froggy was 

 2 inches long and i broad. Bearing in mind the old puzzle, 

 " What's smaller than a mite's mouth ?" " That which goes into 

 it " — I watched proceedings with great interest, and was well 

 rewarded, for the snake immediately seized froggy by the 

 nose, the animal making desperate attempts with fore and hind- 

 legs to shake it ofT, but all in vain. All this while the process of 

 deglutition (?) was going on remorselessly, or rather, the snake 

 was slowly but surely getting outside the frog, and in this fashion : 

 by a sort of vermicular process you could see the sharp little 

 teeth advance a little, and then the whole body wriggle up to 

 the new hold on froggy's head. And so it very gradually dis- 

 appeared ; then came the shoulders, and the arms followed, pressed 

 against the sides. When the teeth reached the sacrum the legs 

 w ere violently convulsed, then they disappeared, and last of all 

 the toes, and the snake was fairly outside froggy. Overjoyed, he 

 rubbed his lips against the sides of the jar, gave two yawns, and 

 then composed himself to digest. The whole process lasted 

 exactly half an hour. 



Snake Charmers. — I had not been many years in India when 

 I had an excellent opportunity of seeing the so-called snake-charm- 

 ing, and of satisfying myself that it was only clever legerdemain. 

 A couple of snake-charmers appeared in the compound and 

 offered to purge it of all the snakes it contained. I embraced 

 the opportunity with great alacrity, but insisted on dictating my 

 own terms, which, after some demur, were agreed to. I 

 selected one man (the other remaining with the baskets), and 

 offered him the choice of accompanying me, either in liisdhotee' 

 only, and a bare head ; or with his pugree'^ and a langootee.' He 

 chose the latter costume, soon made his toilet, and stood before 

 me all but naked. I satisfied myself that the langootce could 

 not possibly conceal a snake, and I had yet to find whence the 

 reptile could, or would be produced. So we proceeded to 

 business, accompanied by a crowd of gaping servants. I led the 

 way to a great prostrate trunk, beneath which a cobra (imagi- 

 nary) was said to lodge, and here he started his rude bagpipe, 

 and began his incantations and gesticulations. But the snake 

 refused to be charmed, for the very good reason that it was not 

 there, and the charmer could not evade my^searching gaze. He 

 now took the lead, and drew up before a tempting looking hole 

 in a bank, where he felt sure he could seduce a snake. " Very 

 well," said I, and we formed a semicircle, in the middle of 

 which he stood, and resumed his incantations. Suddenly, to 

 divert my gaze, he pointed to the hole, and exclaimed, " Dekho, 

 sahib ! " (look, master), and in a moment, extracted (apparently) 

 a cobra from it. But he did not see that, in that moment I had 

 observed his hand, like a lightning flash, extract a snake from the 

 folds of his pugree, and simultaneously appear to extract it from 

 the hole. The modus operandi wOif, clever legerdemain, but unmis- 

 takable cheating. One of my servants saw tiie trick too, and was 

 about to exclaim, but I silenced him with a gesture, and apjieared 

 convincedat the marvel. " Now," said I, "as you h.ave found 

 the snake, you must prove to me that it is poisonous," and so a 

 poor chicken was sent for, and placed under a coop ;With the 

 snake, but here again the snake-charmer overdid his perform- 

 ance, for dislocating the chicken's neck with his finger and thumb 

 as he ])laced it under the coop, he immediately raised it, and 



' Dhotee, the voluminous waist<loth worn 1 y .ill Hindoos. 

 * /'«j?rtf, the cloth wom round the head. 



3 Laiigootee, a narrt.w strip of cloth worn' between the thighs of in« maw, 

 juit sulTicicnt to hide his nudity. 



