112 THE SNAKES OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



the variety of questions asked me, and listening to some wonderful 

 snake stories which I was assured were perfectly true. 



But when an old lady was in tlie middle of a thrilHng tale 

 about a dreadfully venomous snake darting at her with open 

 mouth and long forked tongue, I was startled to observe her face 

 take a dismal hue. Her eyes were fixed in a glassy stare, and 

 her jaw hung limp. Starting from my seat, I prepared to 

 advance to her aid, when with a scream she lurched back- 

 wards. I glanced hastily around, and was about to summon 

 the other ladies to come and help, when my words were checked 

 by observing them rush with gestures of terror out of the 

 room. 



Just then mj^ aunt threw hght upon the bewildering scene by 

 ordering me to leave the room instantly, and take away my 

 loathsome snakes. Then it all came like a flood of light into my 

 mind. It seems as I was listening intently to the old lady talking, 

 that Egg-eater, which I had forgotten all about, suddenly popped 

 his head and a few inches of his body from under the neck 

 portion of my coat out into the full glare of light. That explained 

 the whole m3^stery. 



I retired to my study in disgrace ! 



Egg-eaters are Crafty Snakes, 



The Egg-eater is not altogether a fool. You cannot trick him 

 about things which his ancestors for untold generations have 

 learned from experience and transmitted to him in the form of 

 a remarkably acute sense of smell, wliich is ver}- necessary for 

 him in his profession of an egg-eater. Being short of fresh 

 pigeons' eggs once, I went to my cabinet and took the clean 

 blown shells of a few doves' eggs. Beating up the contents of 

 a fresh fowl's egg, I syringed it into the empty shells, and care- 

 fully pasted tiny bits of tissue paper over the holes. Placing 

 these in the Egg-eaters' cage, I watched, expecting the snakes 

 to swallow them as they always did the other eggs. First one 

 Egg-eater advanced. Touching each egg gently in turn, with 

 the tip of his nose or the point of his forked tongue, he crawled 

 away in disgust. Another, and yet another eagerly advanced, 

 repeating the performance and duly retired. I began to get 



