200 Handbook of Nature-Study 



IV. REPTILE STUDY 



Yet Tvhen a child and barefoot; I more than once, at morn. 

 Have passed, I thought, a whiplash unhraided in the sun, 

 When, stooping to secure it, it wrinkled, and was gone. 



— Emily Dickinson. 



' F the teacher could bring herself to take as much interest as 

 did Mother Eve in that "subtile animal," as the Bible calls 

 the serpent, she might, through such interest, enter the 

 paradise of the boyish heart instead of losing a paradise of 

 her own. How many teachers, who have an aversion for 

 snakes, are obliged to teach small boys whose pet diversion 

 is capturing these living ribbons and bringing them into 

 the schoolroom stowed away not too securely in pockets! 

 In one of the suburban Brooklyn schools, boys of this ilk sought to 

 frighten their teacher with their weird prisoners. But she was equal to 

 the occasion, and surprised them by declaring that there were many 

 interesting things to be studied about snakes, and forthwith sent to the 

 library for books which discussed these reptiles; and this was the begin- 

 ning of a nature-study club of rare efficiency and enterprise. 



There are abroad in the land, many errors concerning snakes. Most 

 people believe that they are all venomous, which is far from true. The 

 rattlesnake still holds its own in rocky, mountainous places and the 

 moccasin haunts the bayous of the southern coast; however, in most 

 localities, snakes are not only harmless but are beneficial to the farmer. 

 The superstition that if a snake is killed, its tail will live until sun-down, is 

 general and has but slender foundation in the fact that snakes, being 

 lower in their nerve-organization than mammals, the process of death is a 

 slow one. Some people firmly believe that snakes spring or jump from 

 the ground to seize their prey, which is quite false since no snake jumps 

 clear of the ground as it strikes, nor does it spring from a perfect coil. 

 Nor are snakes slimy, quite to the contrary, they are covered with per- 

 fectly dry scales. But the most general superstition of all is that, when 

 a snake thrusts out its tongue, it is an act of animosity; the fact is, the 

 tongue is a sense organ and is used as an insect uses its feelers or antennae, 

 and the act is also supposed to aid the creature in hearing; thus when a 

 snake thrusts out its tongue, it is simply trying to find out about its sur- 

 roundings and what is going on. 



Snakes are the only creatures able to swallow objects larger than 

 themselves. This is rendered possible by the elasticity of the body walls, 

 and the fact that snakes have an extra bone hinging the upper to the lower 

 jaw, allowing them to spread widely; the lower jaw also separates at the 

 middle of its front edge and spreads apart sidewise. In order to force a 

 creature into a "bag" so manifestly too small, a special mechanism is 

 needed; the teeth supply this by pointing backward, and thus assist in 

 the swallowing. The snake moves by literally walking on the ends of its 

 ribs, which are connected with the crosswise plates on its lower side; each 

 of these crosswise plates has the hind edge projecting down so that it can 

 hold to an object. Thus, the graceful, noiseless progress of the snake, is 

 brought about by many of these crosswise plates worked by the move- 

 ment of the ribs. 



