AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
339 
life. Four hours after, while removing the 
skin for preservation, the blood oozed slowly 
from the vessels in a dissolved state. No violence 
was done to his snakeship except what he did 
to himself. 
Another moccasin, shot by a pistol about two 
inches back of the head, and skinned immedi¬ 
ately, gave decided evidence of vitality four 
hours'after being flayed, by writhing the body 
whenever it was irritated by a scalpel. 
A large rattlesnake, beheaded instantly with 
a hoe, would, an hour after, strike any thing 
that pinched its tail. Of several persons who 
were testing their firmness of nerve by trying 
to hold the hand steady while the serpent struck 
at it, not one could be found whose hand would 
•not recoil in spite of his resolution ; and one 
'man, a great bully, by-thc-by, was struck on 
the naked throat with considerable force by the 
headless trunk of the serpent, and staggered 
back, fainted and fell, from terror. Mr. Stewart, 
of Mississippi, tells me he once witnessed a sim¬ 
ilar scene. An old hunter shot a rattlesnake’s 
head off, and after reloading his gun and stand¬ 
ing some time, he stooped to pull off the rattles, 
and the bloody but headless trunk of the snake 
struck him in the temple, and he fainted and 
fell down with terror. 
A Seven venomous serpents, belonging to five 
different species, were made to fraternize, and 
dwell amicably in one den. A beautiful pair 
of long-bodied speckled snakes, known as king- 
snakes, found to be fangless, and consequently 
without venom, were duly installed as members 
of the family. Some uneasiness was perceiva¬ 
ble among the older members, but no attempt 
was made to destroy the intruders, though they 
might have been killed ins tan ter. The next 
morning four of the venomous serpents were 
found to have been destroyed by the king- 
snakes, and one was still within their coil, and 
the two remaining ones would make no effort at 
self-defence. A large rattlesnake seemed stupid 
and indifferent to his fate. He could not be 
made to threaten or give warning even with his 
rattles. The smallest king-snake was afterward 
inoculated with the poison of one of the ser¬ 
pents he had destroyed, and died immediately 
after — thus evincing that they must have exer¬ 
cised some power besides physical force to over¬ 
come their fellow-creatures. 
In short, the results of a great number of ex¬ 
periments performed with the venom of a great 
variety of serpents, seem to lead to the follow¬ 
ing conclusions: 
1. That the venom of all serpents acts as a 
poison in a similar manner. 
2. That the venom of some varieties is far 
more active than that of others. 
3. That a variety of the coluber, known as 
the cotton-mouth, is the most venomous serpent 
in Arkansas. 
4. That the venom of serpents destroys all 
forms of organized life, vegetable as well as ani¬ 
mal. 
5. That alcohol, if brought in contact with 
the venom, is, to a certain extent, an antidote. 
6. That serpents do possess the power of fas¬ 
cinating small animals, and that this power is 
identical with mesmerism. 
7. That the blood of small animals, destroyed 
by the venom of serpents, bears a close resem¬ 
blance to that of animals destroyed by lightning 
or hydrocyanic acid; it loses its power of coagu¬ 
lation, and cannot be long kept from putrefac¬ 
tion. 
Canaries. — The Canaries are naturally asso¬ 
ciated with our earliest school-boy notions, as 
the original home of the charming little univer¬ 
sal household songster, to whom they have 
given their name, but here called thistle-finch, 
and having for its companions the blackbird, 
linnet, and others of the same tuneful and now 
Saxonized family. The real canary of these is¬ 
lands, however, the Fringilla Canarir of Lin- 
nmus, and which still abounds here, is not of 
the saffron or yellow color it attains in Europe; 
but is, in its wild state, the color of our common 
field or grey linnet, the yellow hue being the re¬ 
sult of repeated crossings in its artificial state 
amongst us. — Hadfield's Brazil , River Plate , 
and Falkland Inlands. 
THE SWALLOWS. 
Who has passed a dozen hours upon the farm 
with eyes so closed as not to have seen and en¬ 
joyed some such pleasant sights as that dopicted 
by Mrs. Child. Speaking of a family of swal¬ 
lows with which she was acquainted, she says : 
Two barn swallows, came into our wood¬ 
shed in the spring-time. Their busy, earnest 
twittering, led me to suspect they were looking 
out a building-spot; but as a carpenter’s bench 
was under the window, and very frequently ham¬ 
mering, sawing, and planing were going on, I 
had little hope that they would choose a loca¬ 
tion under our roof To my surprise, however, 
they soon began to build in a crotch of a beam 
over the doorway. I was delighted, and spent 
more time in watching than “penny-wise” people 
would have approved. It was in fact, a beautiful 
little drama of domestic love. The mother bird 
was so busy, and so important; and her mate 
was so attentive! Never did any newly-mar¬ 
ried couple take more satisfaction with their 
first nicely arranged drawer of baby clothes, than 
they did in fashioning their little woven cradle. 
The father bird scarcely ever left the side of 
the nest. There he was, all day long, twitter¬ 
ing in tones that were most obviously the out¬ 
pourings of love. Sometimes he would bring in 
a straw, or hair, to be interwoven in the pre¬ 
cious little fabric. One day my attention was 
arrested by a very unusual twittering, and I 
saw him circling round, with a large downy 
feather in his bill. He bent over the unfinished 
nest, and offered it to his mate with the most 
graceful and loving air imaginable; and when 
she put up her mouth to take it, he poured 
forth such a gush of gladsome sound ! It seem¬ 
ed as if pride and affection had swelled his heart 
till it was almost too big for his little bosom. 
“When the young became old enough to fly, 
anybody would have laughed to watch the ma¬ 
noeuvres of the parents! Such a chirping and 
twittering! Such diving down from the nest, 
and flying up again; such wheeling round in 
circles talking to the young ones all the while ! 
Such clinging to the sides of the shed with their 
sharp claws, to show the timid little fledglings 
that there was no need of falling! For three 
days all this was carried on with increasing ac¬ 
tivity. It was obviously an infant flying school. 
But all their talking and fussing was of no avail. 
The little things looked down, then looked up, 
but, alarmed at the infinity of the space, sunk 
down into the nest again. At length the pa¬ 
rents grew impatient, and summoned their neigh¬ 
bors. As I was picking up chips one day, I 
found my head encircled by a swarm of swal- 
ows. They flew up to the nest, and jabbered 
away to the young ones; they clung to the 
wall looking back to tell how the thing was done; 
they dived, and wheeled, and balanced, and 
floated, in a manner beautiful to behold. The 
pupils were evidently much excited. They 
jumped on the edge of the nest, and twittered, 
and shook their feathers, and waved their wings, 
and then hopped back again, saying, ‘‘ Its pretty 
sport; but we can’t do it.” Three times the 
neighbors came and repeated their graceful les¬ 
son. The third time two of the young birds 
gave a sudden plunge downward, and then flut¬ 
tered and hopped till they lighted on a small 
upright log. And oh! such praises as were 
warbled by the whole troop ! The air was filled 
with their joy! Some were flying around, 
swift as a ray of light; others were perched on 
the hoe handle and teeth of the rake; multitudes 
clung to the wall, after the fashion of their 
pretty kind, and two were swinging, in most 
graceful style, on a pendant hoop. Never, while 
memory lasts, shall I forget the swallow party. 
-♦♦ «- 
The model baby-jumper—Papa’s knee. 
... M ■••wmn 
ENGLISH FARMING. 
Leamington, England, July 6, 1854. 
The country through which I have passed 
since leaving London, has presented a very 
beautiful appearance, though the uniformity has 
been greater than a traveler would desire. I 
have seen only two or three forests, but the 
trees are much more numerous than in the 
cleared portions of our own country, that is, in 
our fields and meadows. The fields, divided 
from each other by hedges, are generally smaller 
than in New-England and New-York, and less 
regular in form. The parallelogram and square 
do not appear to be favorite figures with the 
English agriculturists. The trees stand in the 
hedges, which occupy considerably more land 
than is desirable. As the hedges run in all di¬ 
rections, the trees standing in them do not ap¬ 
pear in rows, but scattered promiscuously over 
the landscape. They give it a very beautiful 
appearance; but, at the same time, the shade 
they cast must interfere with the growth of 
wheat and other crops. 
I have seen as yet, in passing from London 
to numerous places in the heart of England, only 
a few fruit trees. It may be that they lie off 
the line of the railway, and are in the vicinity 
of the villages; but from what I have seen, I 
should judge that the English farmers in general 
pay less attention to fruit than the American. 
The markets of London, Oxford, Rugby, Coven¬ 
try, &c., present a fine array of strawberries, 
cherries, raspberries, but not finer than are seen 
in the markets of New-York and Philadelphia. 
Even in the interior, the above-named fruits are 
much dearer here than in New-York. 
The farmers arc now busy in cutting and cur¬ 
ing their hay, and I have watched their opera¬ 
tions with interest. I should here say that the 
crop is a very light one throughout all the parts 
of central England, through which I have 
passed. It is occasioned by the drought. I 
was told, several times, that the hay crop 
throughout the central parts — some said 
throughout all England—will not be more than 
one-fourth as large as usual. Certainly I have 
not seen a single meadow which promised more 
than what would be deemed one-fourth a crop 
in the valleys of Berkshire, or on the banks of 
the Hudson. Hay and its cognate crops will 
be very dear here next fall—a fact which may 
be interesting to some of your agricultural 
readers. 
The mowers I have seen at work, take it 
easily, and would not satisfy an energetic Yan¬ 
kee farmer. I should think that two Yankees 
would do as much as any three Englishmen I 
have seen at work with the scythe or pitchfork, 
and I have had personal experience enough in 
the meadow to have a right to form an opinion. 
In most instances, the hay was not suitably 
cared for. When I was a boy, we never al¬ 
lowed the hay to lie spread over night, if it had 
made any progress towards drying. The dews 
were considered almost as injurious as a shower. 
I presume less dew falls here; still the hay thus 
left exposed lost much of its color, and would 
not be considered as “bright” by a Yankee 
farmer. They have also a slovenly way here of 
putting the hay in cock. I saw only one field 
in which it was put up so as to shed rain. I 
had heard much of English farming; but from 
what little I have seen, I am disposed to give 
the precedence to the farmers of New-England. 
Still, more extended observations may cause me 
to change my opinion. 
No doubt. We have seen much more of 
English farming than the writer of the above 
seems to have done, and we can say that it is 
far neater and more thorough and systematic 
than any which prevails in New-England, ex¬ 
cept in a few isolated cases. 
I visited one group of haymakers, or rather 
of sitters in the hayfield. It was near Coven¬ 
try. I had some difficulty in understanding 
their language. They had but little to say for 
themselves, and contrasted, in point of intelli- 
