CHAPTEK IV. 



OUR ANCIENT ENEMY THE OPHIDIAN.* 

 Snakes. 



A EEPTiLE t in the fullest sense of the term, the 

 snake glides through the grass and across the road, 

 the most unfortunate and repellent representative of 

 his class. I think Enskin hit upon the true reason of 

 our aversion to snakes when he said that the creature 

 glided " a bit one way, a bit another, and some of him 

 not at all." That is the one characteristic of the 

 snake — his circumventive motion — which we most 

 dislike ; regardless of his reptilian looks, it is suffi- 

 cient to know that he skims over the ground in so 

 sinuous a way that we can not keep an eye on him. 

 Any attempt to trace his course meets with failure, 

 and before one realizes it, one is stupidly staring at 

 the spot where the creature icas ! We do not like to 

 be tricked this way ; such an insidious method of 

 locomotion is a species of deceit indicative of the 

 treacherous character of the beast, so we count him 



* Prom o<^£Sioi', a serpent. f "Prom the Latin repo, to crawl. 



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