298 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



piles of snakes he saw in Guiana, can be verified here in 

 our Northern woods and swamps. I personally had the 

 pleasure of observing it twice, both times very early in 

 spring, and in localities which could be called wilderness. 

 I first saw such a bundle of snakes in the neighborhood 

 of Ilchester, Howard County, Maryland, on the stony 

 bank of the Patapsco River, heaped together on a rock 

 and between big stones. It was a very warm and sunny 

 location, where a human being would scarcely disturb 

 them. I reasoned that the warmth and silence of that 

 secluded place brought them together. Some hundreds 

 of them could be counted, and all of them I found in a 

 lively state of humor, hissing at me with threatening 

 glances, with combined forces, and with such a persistency 

 that stones thrown upon them could not stop them, nor 

 alter the position of a single animal. They would make 

 the proper movements and the stone would roll off. All 

 the snakes in this lump were common (garter) snakes. . . . 

 The second time I noticed a ball of black-snakes rolling 

 slowly down a steep and stony hill-side on the bank of 

 the same river." 



Although so much was said of the black-snake, when 

 speaking of serpents as a class, there are yet points in its 

 habits that deserve attention. Perhaps no one of our 

 serpents is more thoroughly dreaded, and with less reason. 

 It is harmless in every sense of the term, and yet in spite 

 of this fact, and of the benefits which it confers upon the 

 farmer, these most useful serpents are becoming yearly 

 less numerous. 



Perhaps the most interesting feature in the history of 

 the black-snake is the power of " charming " a bird or 

 small mammal, which it is supposed to possess. This act 

 is said to consist in exerting, by mere glance of the eye, 



