262 The Study of Animal Life part m 



they are all limbless, unless we credit the little hind claws of some 

 boas and pythons with the title of legs, they flow like swift living 

 streams along the ground, using ribs and scales instead of their lost 

 appendages, pushing themselves forward with jerks so rapid that 

 the movement seems continuous. Without something on which to 

 raise themselves they must remain at least half prostrate, but in the 

 forest or on rough ground there are no lither gymnasts. Their 

 united eyelids give them an unlimited power of staring, and, accord- 

 ing to uncritical observers, of fascination ; yet most of them seem 

 to see dimly and hear faintly, trusting mainly for guidance to the 

 touch of their restless protrusible tongue and to their sense of 

 smell. Their only language is a hiss or a whine. Most of them 

 have an annual period of torpor, and all periodically cast off their 

 scales in a normally continuous slough, which they turn outside-in 

 as they crawl out. Almost all lay eggs, but in a few cases (e.g. 

 the adder) the young are hatched within the mothers, and this 

 mode of birth may be induced by artificial conditions. Think not 

 meanly of the serpent, "it is the very omnipotence of the earth. 

 That rivulet of smooth silver — how does it flow, think you ? It 

 literally rows on the earth with every scale for an oar ; it bites the 

 dust with the ridges of its body. Watch it when it moves slowly — 

 a wave, but without wind ! a current, but with no fall ! all the 

 body moving at the same instant, yet some of it to one side, some 

 to another, or some forward, and the rest of the coil backwards ; 

 but all with the same calm will and equal way — no contraction, no 

 extension ; one soundless, causeless, march of sequent rings, and 

 spectral procession of spotted dust, with dissolution in its fangs, 

 dislocation in its coils. Startle it — the winding stream will become 

 a twisted arrow ; the wave of poisoned life will lash through the 

 grass like a cast lance. It scarcely breathes with its one lung (the 

 other shrivelled and abortive) ; it is passive to the sun and shade, 

 and cold or hot like a stone ; yet ' it. can outclimb the monkey, 

 outswim the fish, outleap the zebra, outwrestle the athlete, and 

 crush the tiger.' It is a Divine hieroglyph of the demoniac power 

 of the earth — of the entire earthly nature. As the bird is the 

 clothed power of the air, so this is the clothed power of the dust ; 

 as the bird is the symbol of the spirit of life, so this of the grasp and 

 sting of death." 1 



This well-known and eloquent passage is not perfectly true, — 

 thus the serpent breathes not scarcely but strongly with its one 

 lung, — but, while you may correct and complete it as you will, I am 

 sure that you will find here more insight into the nature of serpents 

 than in pages of anatomical description. 



1 Ruskin's Queen of the Air. 



