292 
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 distance. I looked all around 
without distinguishing anything, until T 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 
