Reptiles. 



8859 



I regret that he is now in India, or I would have asked him for any 

 particulars he could remember before writing to you. 



The date of both adventures was, I think, the midsummer holidays 

 of 1855 or 1856. I should very much like to hear what any good 

 naturalist would say about it. Is there any creature known in England 

 which would answer to this description ? or, if not, is there any con- 

 clusive reason why these snakes, or this snake (they might well have 

 been the same) should not be an exceptionally marked specimen of 

 any of the well-known orders ? or must I really be contented to believe 

 that the only world in which my red-crested friend ever hunted rats, 

 was the excited imagination of a silly boy ? 



I am induced, sir, to hope that the interest your writings show you 

 to take in "the doubtful" in Natural History, and the chivalrous 

 spirit which prompted you to take up the cudgels on behalf of poor 

 Madame Merian and slighted mermaidens, may lead you to ask for a 

 fair hearing, in the c Zoologist,' or elsewhere, for a possible cousin, 

 however humble, of the crowing basilisk of the limestone crevices in 

 the West Indian Mountains. Once more begging you to pardon my 

 intrusion, I remain, &c. 



T. Digby Pigott. 



June 1, 1863. 



My dear Sir, — The solution for the mystery of my red-headed snake 

 which you suggest, in the letter you were so toxy kind as to favour me 

 with on the subject, viz. that the rat had wounded it, is not new to me. 

 For several reasons, however, I do not think it tenable. If accepted 

 in the case of my snake, the difficulty is as great as ever in the case 

 of my brother's. I cannot say exactly how long after my adventure it 

 was that he met with his ; but my impression is that one was about 

 the beginning and the other towards the end of the same holidays, 

 and that some weeks at least had passed. My brother certainly had 

 heard all about my "red-head," but (and in weighing the value of his 

 evidence it seems to me an important "but") he was older than 

 myself, and the only celebrity which my story had brought me was 

 rather too much of the character of Munchausen's to make him 

 ambitious to snatch a share of it. 



Another suggestion is that, as the creature slipped out of the hole, 

 something (possibly a withering leaf, or the petal of some wild flower 

 growing on the bank) might have fallen on its head, where it might 

 have rested sufficiently long to give me the notion, in the hurried 



glance I got, that it was part of the animal itself. 



/ 



