REPTILES IN CAPTIVITY 185 
made. I had by this time had enough of the job for one day, 
and the next day when I applied myself to the task once 
more I devised a new plan for effecting the change. I tore 
off the boards which surrounded the wire netting in the old 
cage, and in the wire netting itself I bored a small four- 
cornered hole, against which I placed the opening of the new 
cage—an opening which was capable of being closed by 
means of a sliding door. The new cage was in darkness; 
and the old cage, now that the boards had been removed from 
it, was flooded with light. Now it is a peculiarity of snakes 
that they all like to crawl away into the darkest corners they 
can find ; and after an hour all the puff-adders, eight in number, 
had gone across into the new cage. I then merely closed 
the sliding door and the transference had been effected. 
Since that time, when they so nearly escaped, I have always 
had a holy horror of poisonous snakes. 
The bite of a rattle-snake is exceedingly poisonous ; and 
I have observed that white rats given them for food usually 
die within half a minute of being bitten. This is, however, by 
no means invariable. Under natural conditions out of doors 
it sometimes happens that the weak and unprotected creature 
will overcome one much more powerful and better armed. I 
have known a case in which a rattle-snake was killed by a 
rat given it for food. The rat was put in the cage one even- 
ing, and when we came round next morning we found the 
-rattle-snake lying dead, and the rat sitting triumphantly in a 
corner of the cage. He had even commenced to make a 
meal off the body of the formidable reptile. An examination 
of the marks upon the dead snake’s body showed that the rat 
must have sprung suddenly upon the nape of its neck and, 
having planted its teeth firmly there, held on tightly until the 
rattle-snake died. A large piece had been taken out of the 
animal’s neck which the rat had devoured. After this experi- 
ence we never again used wild rats as food for snakes. 
Fights between snakes for food are not uncommon, and 
in the course of these fights it very often happens that the 
