1152 Canadian Forestry Journal, June, 1917 



especial aid and service, are wantonly slaughtered by us; and only because 

 we neglect to become acquainted with our natural — that is — God-given 

 friends! 



At this season of the year you may see along the country roads, almost 

 any day, the crushed and battered body of a dull-hued snake. He was in 

 life harmless, timid, without venom. Had he, through accident, and wholly 

 without intention, intruded into your home or into the grateful warmth of 

 your camp bed even, he would not have harmed you, for he had no weapon of 

 defence only his swift speed, and his coloring, which blended so well with the 

 ground; — his uniform, it is, for the Great Captain placed him, little, humble 

 soldier, — to destroy man's enemies, — beetles, cockroaches, worms, mice, 

 etc., such as congregate and multiply under stones, boards, low growing 

 shrubs and crevices. 



As long as he lives, daily during the season of multiplying insects and 

 pests, he seeks and devours your enemies, and during the season when insect 

 life is quiet, this little allied soldier is "off duty," and so goes away to rest 

 and sleep, after a long unbroken stretch of active service. We see no snakes 

 in winter; they are torpid; tired and "dead to the world" as you say, when 

 you sleep heavily after a hard day's work. 



With the warm spring days comes the rush of battle; and when, know- 

 ing this, he wakens from his rest to resume the fight for us, we, who should 

 fight for him and his little life, — deliberately slay him! 



Why? Simply through an influence coming from an unenlightened 



age, by which we have for centuries been taught a mythical story, a legend 

 older than Abraham by many hundreds of years, that snakes are accursed; 

 a legend which well might l)ave originated and carried weight in the earliest 

 days of man, when the'monsters of the Reptilian period were still numerous 

 and powerful over the- face of the earth. But through the periods during 

 which man has grown into possession and need, the venomous snakes have 

 grown less, and the harmless ones are now in the great majority. 



That they are not accursed, is shown in the fact that they were given a 

 work to do; and he to whom God gives a life of work, no matter how lowly, 

 is not accursed, but loved and trusted. 



The Lizard and His Insect Hunger 



Sometimes, in our woods, you see a tiny lizard; a minature crocodile; 

 with bright beadlike eyes, a tapering body which elongates into a "tail" as 

 we call it; and limbs, a close reproduction of those of the big crocodile you 

 see in pictures. This is a little "swift;" a lover of sunny spots and rotten logs, 

 upon which he is usually found; as here he seeks his insect food to a certain 

 extent. 



I was earnestly instructed lately, by a small boy, not on any account 

 to go near one of these tiny reptilian, as he was a very dangerous fellow and 

 might bite me, and so end my life! Poor, busy, little soldier Swift! How 

 little is his friendly battling work understood and appreciated by those who 

 should know him better. 



Place him on your window sill, where the sun comes warm through the 

 glass, and see how quickly and eagerly he will clear the flies away. To the 

 forests, and through the forests to man, — he is a friend to be treasured, pro- 

 tected and aiiltivated. 



Frogs also are insect eaters; and as such deserve to be spared the stoning 

 that boys and girls thoughtlessly give them. Aside from the assistance they 

 give us in our fight for existence, we should not ignore their musical ability; 

 and their welcome Spring concerts; — who has not enjoyed them? 



Toads, despised through ages of superstition as the embodiment of poison, 

 and killed when found in gardens, as it was believed that persons had been 

 known to die through eating a plant "at whose root a toad lay hidden," are 

 still held in repugnance as the aftermath of this old, old belief. 



