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THE SNAKE. 207 
their boles, and stepped from branch to branch, 
every now and then getting an imperfect sight of 
the snake. Sometimes I headed him, and some- 
times I was behind him, as he rose and sank, and 
lurked in the muddy water. During all this time, 
he never once attempted to spring at me, because 
I took care to manceuvre in a way not to alarm him. 
At last, having observed a favourable opportunity, 
I made a thrust at him with the lance; but I did it 
in a bungling manner, for I only gave him a slight 
wound. I hadno sooner done this, than he instantly 
sprang at my left buttock, seized the Russia sheet- 
ing trousers with his teeth, and coiled his tail round 
my right arm. All this was the work of a moment. 
Thus accoutred, I made my way out of the swamp, 
while the serpent kept his hold of my arm and 
trousers with the tenacity of a bulldog. 
As many travellers are now going up and down 
the world in quest of zoological adventures, I could 
wish to persuade them that they run no manner of 
risk in being seized ferociously by an American 
racer snake, provided they be not the aggressors: 
neither need they fear of being called to an ac- 
count for intruding upon the amours of the rattle- 
snake (see Jameson's Journal for June, 1827); 
which amours, by the way, are never consummated 
in the manner there described. The racer’s exploits 
must evidently have been invented long ago, by 
some anxious old grandmother, in the back woods 
of 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 
