SNAKES AND SNAKE STORIES 4-1 



INSTANTLY UTTERED A YELL 



which could be heard across the East River. He 

 had not won his bet; there was no snake in my 

 pocket, but on my way to the ferry I had passed 

 through Fulton Market and Eugene Blackford, 

 the fish merchant, had called me into his office to 

 show me some extraordinarily large crawfish. As 

 I left he presented me with one, and having no 

 better place to carry it I put it in the pocket of 

 my coat. 



THE CRAWFISH 



was as large as a young lobster, and its claws were 

 as strong. With its sharp, muscular pincer fas- 

 tened on my friend's finger, it brought the blood, 

 made a painful wound, and taught him to keep 

 his hands in his own pocket. As the gentleman was 

 a Wall Street man, this lesson did not seem very 

 inappropriate. 



Jn all the foregoing illustrations of 



SNAKES' EGGS, 



all but one of those represented hatch inside the 

 mother snake, the young being born alive; but in 

 the last illustration are shown four eggs of the 

 milk snake. These eggs are laid like a hen's 

 egg and hatch like turtle's eggs. On the i6th of 

 July, the milk snake which we had, laid six oblong 

 white eggs with leather-like shells, which, as they 

 became dry, sunk in at the sides as shown by the 



