I06 THE BLACK SNAKE 



The following description of a contest between 

 the Black Snake, and another species, is extracted 

 from the Letters of an American Farmer : " One of 

 my constant walks when I am at leisure (says this 

 gentleman) is in my lowlands, where I have the 

 pleasure of seeing my cattle, horses, and colts. 

 Exuberant grass replenishes all my fields, the best 

 representative of our wealth. In the middle of that 

 tract, I have cut a ditch eight feet wide. On each 

 side of this I carefully sow every year some grains 

 of hemp, which rise to the height of fifteen feet, so 

 strong and full of limbs as to resemble young trees ; 

 I once ascended one of them four feet above the 

 ground. These produce natural arbours, rendered 

 often still more compact by the assistance of an an- 

 nual creeping plant, which we call a vine, that 

 never fails to entwine itself among the branches^ 

 and always produces a very desirable shade. As 

 I was one day sitting, solitary and pensive, in this 

 primitive arbour, my attention was engaged by 

 a strange sort of rustling noise, at some paces 

 distance. I looked all around without distin- 

 guishing any thing, until I climbed up one of 

 my great hemp-stalks ; when, to my astonish- 

 ment, I beheld two snakes of considerable length, 

 the one pursuing the other with great celerity 

 through a hemp stubble field. The aggressor 

 was of the black kind, six feet long ; the fugi- 

 tive was a Water Snake, nearly of equal dimensions; 

 They soon met, and, in the fury of their first en- 

 counter, appeared in an instant firmly twisted toge- 

 ther ; and, whilst their united tails beat the ground, 



