A LEAF FROM MY SKETCH BOOK 



By DAN BEARD 



LOOPING THE LOOP 



While out in the woods during the early 

 summer I became much interested in the 

 tree-climbing snakes, and while making some 

 colored sketches of live specimens I was sur- 

 prised at the facility and rapidity with which 

 these snakes could tie a knot with their bod- 

 ies, and also the strength they exhibited. In 

 a recent issue there was a note in Recrea- 

 tion, telling how Jimmy Chandler, of Bo- 



might not have been the best it must have 

 required phenomenal strength on the part of 

 the snake to pull its head loose from his 

 grasp. I would have been more surprised at 

 this and inclined to doubt it were it not for 

 the fact that last summer I grasped a water 

 snake, which was creeping under a rock, by 

 the tail and attempted to hold it until some 

 one should remove the stone ; but the snake 

 pulled so hard that it left the tail in my 



. . . he handcuffed me 



hernia, Pike County, Pennsylvania, was bit- 

 ten on the hand by a rattler. What inter- 

 ests me in connection with this subject is 

 not the fact of Jim's being bitten by this 

 venomous reptile, but that when the snake 

 was wrapped around his arm and he grasped 

 it by the neck it had sufficient strength to 

 pull itself loose from his hand, which fact 

 caused the accident. I know Jim, and he is 

 a powerful young backwoodsman, with 

 muscles of iron, and even though his hold 



grasp and itself disappeared under the stone; 

 I have never heard that the water snake has 

 not been noted for its strength. So, when 

 making these sketches the little green snake 

 which I attempted to hold with one hand 

 while I sketched with the other, would swing 

 its tail around until it struck my pencil or 

 some o f her object and then, with a motion 

 quicker than that of the most expert Jack 

 Tar, he'd throw a hitch around that object, 

 or a knot, which could not be pulled loose 



62 



