DEAD WILLOW BEND. 149 



that snakes, when fatally injured during the day, never 

 die until after sundown ; that so long as they can bask 

 in the sun, however mangled they may be, they will re- 

 main alive. Of course this is an exaggeration, and yet 

 I am not surprised that such an impression should have 

 become common in the country. I have often seen hog- 

 nosed snakes decapitated by the plough, and when the 

 ploughman came again in his rounds to the spot, the 

 headless snake would strike at him. At first it puzzled 

 me to conceive how the reptile knew of the man's ap- 

 proach ; but I found, by experimenting with one such 

 headless snake, that the approach of the plough was rec- 

 ognized by the tremor in the earth caused by the tramp 

 of the horses. Even in sandy soils this tremor is very 

 considerable, and can be recognized very readily. 



This is too painful a subject to enter into more fully, 

 and let it suffice to say that a fracture of the spine, and 

 sometimes a flattening of the skull, paralyzes, but does 

 not kill, and consciousness returning, such injured snakes 

 may linger for hours in agony. If people must kill 

 snakes (harmless species ought never to be molested) let 

 the work be done thoroughly. 



Just as abruptly as my thoughts were turned tow- 

 ards snakes, so they forsook them when, touching my 

 foot upon what I supposed to be a stone, I found it to 

 be a large box-tortoise. As is my custom, I examined 

 the plastron to see if any name or date had been cut 

 thereon. In this case there was neither. I had better 

 fortune, in this respect, during a hill-side ramble, in May, 

 1885, as I then came across one of these uncouth creat- 

 ures, and to my surprise and delight, the following was 



