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LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS. 



exclusively carnivorous, so energetic, and so well furnished 

 for rapine as Serpents, would sometimes direct their arms 

 against each other. Perhaps our readers may not be dis- 

 pleased to see the report of a conflict of this sort, in which 

 the prowess of the combatants, their equality of force, their 

 perseverance, and their fury, are graphically described by 

 a gentleman who declares himself to have been an eye- 

 witness of the scene. Of course the story depends on the 

 veracity of the writer ; but we may be permitted to observe 

 that some- details of the description, which a naturalist can 

 appreciate, and which could scarcely have been invented, 

 seem to indicate that the picture was drawn from the life. 



The story is narrated by Mr St John in his " Letters 

 of an American Farmer." • After describing the size and 

 strength of some hemp-plants, around which a wild vine 

 had formed natural arbours, he thus proceeds : — " As I 

 was one day sitting, solitary and pensive, in this primitive 

 arbour, my attention was engaged by a strange sort of 

 rustling noise at some paces distant. I looked all around 

 without distinguishing anything, until I climbed up one of 

 my great hemp-stalks; when, to my astonishment, I beheld 

 two Snakes of a considerable length, the one pursuing the 

 other with great celerity through a hemp-stubble field. 

 The aggressor was of the Black kind, six feet long; the 

 fugitive was a Water Snake, nearly of equal dimensions, 

 They soon met, and, in the fury of their first encounter, 

 appeared in an instant firmly twisted together; and whilst 

 their united tails beat the ground, they mutually tried, 

 with open jaws, to lacerate each other. What a fell aspect 

 did they present ! Their heads were compressed to a very 

 small size ; their eyes flashed fire ; but, after this conflict 



