Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life

CHAPTER II.

SNAKES OF FICTION AND OF FACT.

IN a celebrated lecture on ‘Snakes,’ given by Mr. Ruskin at the London Institution in March 1880, he introduced his subject with the three considerations: ‘What has been thought about them?’ ‘What is truly known about them?’—extremely little, as he suggested;—and, ‘What is wisely asked about them, and what is desirable to know?’

The three questions exactly agree with the object of my work, this chapter especially; and I will invite my readers to seek in their own minds the answer to the first question, which will also furnish a solution to the second, and, I trust, incite some interest in the third.

The learned lecturer carried us through the realms of fancy, to conjure up all the grotesque creatures which, under the name of ‘serpents,’ have figured in heraldry and mythology. By these, and by the light of the poets of old, and in later times through the naturalists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we learn what a ‘serpent’ was to them, and what it included. In remote antiquity it was an embodiment of the hideous and the terrible; and in spite of Aristotle (a comparatively recent authority), dragons and such-like chimÆrical creatures have pervaded the mind both of the erudite and the ignorant, in association with serpents, till within three hundred years, and are not even yet altogether discarded.

Nor am I inclined to believe that the terror-inspiring representations of classic days are so unreal as might be supposed. PalÆontology is continually bringing to light new evidences of the presence of man on the earth in ages far remote; and we do not know for certain what strange forms of animal life were his contemporaries, or when the faculty of speech was so far developed in him as to enable him to learn about his predecessors, which were still more terrible. We do know that fossils of mammoth creatures, passing strange, are coeval with fossil human remains, and to those early types of humanity a knowledge of still stranger creatures of reptilian forms may have been handed down from mouth to mouth; for there is generally a germ of truth at the root of a myth. Fossil remains tell us of the gigantic forms of ancient reptiles, or compound reptile-fish or reptile-birds, and quadrupeds which have gradually diminished in size or become altogether extinct as our own period has been approached.

Said Professor Huxley, at the British Association in 1878, ‘Within the last twenty years we have an astonishing accumulation of evidence of the existence of man in ages antecedent to those of which we have any historical record. Beyond all question, man, and what is more to the purpose, intelligent man, existed at a time when the whole physical conformation of the country was totally different from that which now characterizes it.’

Did these intelligent beings know anything of the Dinotherium (dreadful beast), or the Dinornis (dreadful bird), or any other of those fearful forms which have furnished historic ages with a dragon?

Coming down to our own era, and the time when travel and education first induced the observation and study of animals with a view to learn their habits, and to arrange them under some system of classification, we begin to see the perplexities that presented themselves to naturalists, especially with regard to egg-producing creatures. To Topsell, a writer of the seventeenth century, every creeping or crawling thing was ‘a Serpente,’ and many insects were included in his category. To Lawson, on the contrary, every egg-producing creature, if not a bird, was an ‘Insect.’ In his History of Carolina, 1709, he describes, under ‘Insects of Carolina,’ all the snakes he saw, also the alligators, lizards, etc., and thus continues: ‘The Reptiles or smaller Insects are too numerous to relate here, the Country affording innumerable quantities thereof; as the Flying Stags with Horns, Beetles, Butterflies, Grasshoppers, Locusts, and several hundred of uncouth Shapes.’ Having thus gone through the ‘Insects,’ except the ‘Eel-snake’ (which turns out to be a ‘Loach’ or leech), he gets puzzled over a ‘Tortois, vulgarly called Turtle, which I have ranked among the Insects, because they lay Eggs, and I did not know well where to put them.’ And Lawson was not alone in not knowing ‘where to put’ a countless number of other creatures that go to form the endless links in the long chain of living organisms; even plants, which, to use Darwin’s words, ‘with animals, though most remote in the scale of nature, are bound together by a web of complex relations.’ You may place the dove at one end of the chain and the crocodile at the other, without one broken link. The earliest bird which palÆontology has revealed had teeth in its bill, claws on the end of its wings, and a long tail with feathers growing out of it, like a pinnate leaf.

We see those strange forms reproduced in the gardens of the Crystal Palace. Lizards with the head of a bird and other combinations, the Pterosauria or winged-lizards, Ichthyosauria or fish-lizards, of which some representative types still exist in the African Lepidosiren and the Mexican Axolotl, which have puzzled modern physiologists as much as the Carolina tortoise puzzled Lawson; for whether to call them reptiles or fishes was long a disputed question. Dr. Carpenter, in his Zoology, reckons fifty-eight of such links among reptiles; as, for instance, the transition from turtles to crocodiles, from tortoises to lizards, in which latter we find the legs growing shorter, till they are gone altogether in the blindworms and amphisbÆnas. These again branch off to the cecilias, and the cecilias to worms on one side, and to frogs on the other, having the form of a snake, but the skin of the batrachian. There are the Ophiosaurians, snake-lizards, and Saurophidians, lizard-snakes; there are lizard-like frogs and frog-like lizards; some of them beginning life with gills, and becoming air-breathers afterwards, others of saurian aspect retaining their gills through life; and from these, again, is the transition between reptiles and fishes. There are diminutive snakes of worm-like aspect, and gigantic worms which might be mistaken for snakes; and among modern naturalists, that is to say within one hundred years, worms have been classed with reptiles when none such enormous species as those lately found in Africa were dreamed of.

There is in no branch of zoology so much confusion as in herpetology; and if the reader will, with a sweep of the imagination, embrace the innumerable forms that come under the class Reptilia, their various coverings, and their close gradations, he will not wonder at this. Let us glance at a few of the systems adopted by LinnÆus and others of his time, who, we must remember, had to combat not only inherited ideas of ‘creeping things,’ but the difficulties presented by badly stuffed or bottled specimens; the latter often having been so long in alcohol that their colours had flown, or their covering changed in texture. The Atlantic was not crossed in a week in those days; and three months, instead of three weeks, barely sufficed to reach India, to say nothing of inland journeys when you got there. If foreign specimens came home after the manipulations of a taxidermist, he had done his very best to render them as hideous as tradition painted them. Sometimes a wooden head on a stuffed body; teeth that might furnish the jaws of the largest felines, and a tongue to match; while with external cleansings, scrapings, and polishings, it were hard to discover what manner of skin had originally clothed the creature.

Carefully chosen was Aristotle’s name for reptiles, ‘the terrestrial, oviparous, sanguineous animals;’ for those which we are considering, breathe by lungs, and are therefore red-blooded. Cuvier divided the egg-producing animals into oviparous quadrupeds (lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and frogs); bipeds, the birds; insects and serpents. LinnÆus—who, by the way, preceded Cuvier—called all reptiles ‘amphibious animals,’ of which serpents were the second order, those ‘without limbs.’ He also divided them into orders, genera, and species; but in the Ophidia was guided too much by the scales, which has caused confusion ever since, as both poisonous and harmless snakes often present similar characters in this respect.

If the reader will turn to the illustration of scales (p. 193), he will see an example of the large scutÆ or ventral plates that are possessed by the majority of the true Ophidia. The burrowing snakes, most of them small and allied to lizards in their structure, are protected by a cuirass of hard, close-set, polished scales, alike all round; or else with a thick, smooth skin arranged in rings. Some very poisonous serpents, notably the sea-snakes, have also the scales alike all round, because they do not require the hold which those large ventral scales afford to land serpents in progression; but it will at once be seen that on so slight a resemblance it would be unsuitable to arrange such widely-differing families in the same group. The majority of snakes have the scales under the tail different from those under the body; and a very large number, both of venomous and innocuous snakes, have broad ventral scales, as far as the termination of the body, and then a double row where the tail commences. The accompanying illustration is sufficient to convey a general idea of the arrangement of the scales before and after the anus.

LinnÆus called all serpents with these two rows of sub-caudal scales, Colubers, including under this name many both large and small, land and water, poisonous and harmless snakes. In respect for the great talent and vast work accomplished by this eminent naturalist, as well as his then paramount and diffusive knowledge, his systems prevailed for a very long while. Cuvier, after LinnÆus, became also a great authority for a time. He recognised distinctions in the fangs of venomous snakes, and would reform some previous errors regarding scales. ‘Boa comprenaient autrefois tous les serpens venimeux ou non, dont le dessous du corps et de la queue est garni de bandes d’une seul piÈce.’[5] It was equally unsuitable to mingle those with the double rows, as it put a viper and a coluber together. Cuvier also made closer distinctions between the lizard-like snakes and the true Ophidia, ‘serpens proprement dit.’ The words herpetology (from the Greek), and serpents (from the Latin serpo), formerly embraced a much larger variety; the former may include all reptiles, while the more recently adopted one of ophiology comprises snakes only. And the history of the word tells of the history of the distinctions gradually adopted as above described, as the true snakes or serpents, without external limbs, were separated from the rest.

The various names for a snake—Anguis, Serpens, Coluber, etc.—having been made generic distinctions by some of the older naturalists, cause considerable puzzle to the student, who finds these words applied alike to many varying species in as many books, because a writer has often taken one author for his guide, instead of comparing a number. Many modern writers on ophiology give us a list of synonymes, which in time are found to unravel the above perplexities, but which are at first more puzzling than not, because a single snake is presented to you under so many different names. This will be apparent in the course of this work, wherein much that is merely suggestive in the present chapter will be treated more fully under various headings, without, I trust, offering a too wearisome repetition. Indeed, the whole study of the Ophidia presents so many exceptions that recapitulations may be acceptable rather than otherwise. An interlacing of subjects has not here been avoided so much as contrived, in the hope of presenting the whole more clearly to the mind of the student.

Ruskin favoured his audience with printed lists of the ‘names of the snake tribe in the great languages.’ And these I gladly reproduce for the benefit of my readers.

‘Names of the Snake Tribe in the Great Languages.’

1. Ophis (Greek), ‘the seeing’ (creature, understood). Meaning especially one that sees all round it.

2. Dracon (Greek), Drachen (German), ‘the beholding.’ Meaning one that looks well into a thing, or person.

3. Anguis (Latin), ‘the strangling.’

4. Serpens (Latin), ‘the winding.’

5. Coluber (Latin), Couleuvre (French), ‘the coiling.’

6. Adder (Saxon), ‘the grovelling.’

7. Snake (Saxon), Schlange (German), ‘the crawling’ (with sense of dragging, and of smoothness).

The first, and Ophidion, a small serpent, Ophiodes, etc., have given the name Ophiology to the science; the second was also a ‘serpente’ in days of yore. The third, Anguis, is now applied to some of the smooth, burrowing snakes; and the rest speak for themselves.

Before quite taking leave of obsolete teachings, a few lines from two very distinguished authors of the seventeenth century must be quoted, the influence of both having no doubt gone a great way towards diffusing beliefs. Lord Bacon—in his book, Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane. To the King. 1605—writes, ‘It is not possible to join Serpentine Wisdom with the Columbine Innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the Serpent; his Baseness and going upon his Belly, his Volubility and Lubricity, his Envy and Sting; for without this, Virtue lyeth unfenced.’

What quality is to be understood by ‘Volubility,’ the reader must decide. Of the other five offences, all except that of crawling are simply imaginary. By ‘Lubricity,’ a supposed sliminess may be intended, or the old fable of ‘licking’ the prey; and the only reasonable interpretation of the ‘Sting’ is that the old Saxon word styng did imply a wound punctured or pierced with any fine, sharp instrument; and the venomous tooth is not so very unlike an insect’s sting after all.

The next is from Pepys’ Diary, vol. i. p. 322.—Feb. 4th, 1661:—‘Mr. Templer, an ingenious Man, discoursing of the Nature of Serpents, told us that some in the waste Places of Lincolnshire do grow to a Great Bigness, and do feed upon Larkes which they take thus:—They observe when the Larke is soared to the Highest, and do crawl till they come to be just underneath them, and there they place themselves with their mouth uppermost; and there, as it is conceived, they do eject Poyson upon the Bird; for the Bird do suddenly come down again in its course of a Circle, and falls directly into the Mouth of the Snake.’

This story, founded on fact, is related by a beholder who, to use the words of Dr. Andrew Wilson when discoursing on ‘Zoological Myths,’ made ‘an unscientific use of his imagination.’ Our largest English snake has no poison to ‘eject, as it was conceived.’ Quite possible that it might have looked up towards the singing lark, and with the swiftness of the bird in its descent, glided towards the spot, ready to pounce upon it. The absurdity of poison being ejected upwards through a needle-like fang,—had the snake possessed such an instrument,—and to such a height, is evident.

Having reduced a very large circle of anomalous reptiles, till the Ophidia only are in possession of the enclosure, let me endeavour to dispose of these according to the present accepted methods—not of classification, or this volume would be mere lists of names. In 1858, when Dr. GÜnther arranged and classified the collection in the British Museum, there were 3100 colubrine snakes (those with no viperine features); and when you think of these three thousand odd having, on an average, a dozen names each (the reason for which is deferred till the later chapters), my readers will cheerfully dispense with much in the way of classes and orders, especially as the present methods are reckoned very defective, and there is a loud cry for a new classification of the Reptilia. Already the reader can surmise some of the difficulties, and they will be more evident as we proceed.

The whole order of Ophidia may be divided into the venomous and the non-venomous, or into other two divisions, viz. those which approach the Saurians, having scales alike all round, vestiges of shoulder bones and hind limbs, and with ribs nearly encircling the body; and those which have the broad ventral plates, no rudimentary limbs, and a tongue far more extensible than the previous group.

It will not, I trust, be out of place to introduce a table as presented to us at some of the ‘Davis Lectures’ at the London Zoological Gardens; for I think I am safe in saying this arrangement is adopted by nearly all our living authorities. To go back to the days of our childhood and the game of ‘Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?’—the original three kingdoms of Nature,—the first heads our table: ANIMAL KINGDOM. Next comes the sub-kingdom, comprising five divisions, namely mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs, and fishes, each of which is divided into class, order, family, genus, species, with sometimes a sub-class or a sub-order. Professor St. George Mivart divides the whole of the reptiles into—(1) Chelonia, the tortoises; (2) Ophidia, the snakes; (3) Crocodilia, or Loricata, the crocodiles; (4) Sauria, the lizards. Batrachia, the frogs, he separates, because they begin life as a fish. Originally there were nine orders of reptiles; then for a long while we were taught that there were four,—Chelonians, Ophidians, Saurians, and Batrachians. Every one of the above so merges into the others that many herpetologists differ in drawing the lines between them.

If we were asked to define our little friend, the ring snake, that ate a frog while we were studying his anatomy, we would say that he belongs to the—

1. Animal Kingdom.
2. Sub-Kingdom, Vertebrata.
3. Class, Reptilia.
4. Order, Ophidia.
5. Family, Tropidonotus.
6. Genus, Coluber.
7. Species, Natrix.

He is most frequently known as Coluber natrix, though as both words mean simply a snake, the name is inadequate. In fact, our common English snake has been rather neglected in the way of titles, the only generic name which is at all descriptive being Tropidonotus, so called from the keel which characterizes the scales. So he is Tropidonotus natrix, and Natrix tropidonotus, and Natrix torquata of the different authors, the last-named specific presumably given on account of the collar which he wears, and which being often yellow, has gained for him the name of ‘ring snake.’ Coluber natrix, having so few synonymes, they are all given, in illustration of what has been already said of the perplexity of names assigned by different naturalists. And, by the way, this ‘ring’ or ‘collar’ is not an invariable mark. Sometimes the yellow is wanting altogether, and only a white collar is displayed. At the time of writing[6] there is one of these snakes at the Zoological Gardens with not the least tint of yellow on its neck; and I have before me in alcohol a very young and beautiful little specimen in which the white collar is very bright and large, and set off with deep black behind it, but there is not an approach to yellow or to a ring, the throat being pure white. His Latin specific is therefore more appropriate than his English one, the collar being always there, but not always the ring.

Dr. GÜnther divides the whole of the Ophidia into five groups, and in briefly describing these I shall hope to conduct my readers towards a consideration of those remarkable features which will be discussed under their various heads, and which will exhibit the class as unique in their marvellous organization and physical powers.

The five groups are—

1. Burrowing Snakes.
2. Ground Snakes.
3. Tree Snakes.
4. Fresh-water Snakes.
5. Sea Snakes.

(1) The Burrowing Snakes live chiefly underground, some of them working their way down like the worms; and to fit them for this life they are characterized by having short stiff bodies covered with hard, firm, close scales, to form an armour. Most of them have short and rather curious tails, as described in chap. xi.; but many that burrow and hide in the ground live a good deal on the surface as well. Our little native slow-worm (Anguis fragilis) is allied to these. Their heads are small and narrow, their muzzle smooth and strong to help them to work their way. Their jaws do not stretch apart, nor does their head get out of shape in eating, the bones being all more consolidated; and their food being chiefly insects, slugs, worms, etc., they seize upon these, and hold them, and then with quick snaps get them down their throats. Many of them have rudiments of a sternum, and pelvic bones—vestiges, perhaps, is a more correct term, as we shall find by and by, for their saurian ancestors had perfect limbs. The group is large, perfectly harmless, and has representatives in most countries where a snake or a lizard is to be found. None are of great size.

(2) The Ground Snakes include by far the greatest number and diversity, and though passing their time chiefly on the surface like our ‘ring-snake,’ can both climb trees and enjoy the water. Some of the most venomous as well as the harmless and gentle kinds, and some of the largest as well as the smallest, live habitually on the ground. To fit them for progression, they have the broad ventral scales described on p. 46, wide dilatable jaws like Coluber natrix, and scales of various patterns and colourings. Vipers, the cobras, the coronellas, the boas, moccasins, ‘carpet snakes,’ and other familiar names belong to this large group.

(3) Tree Snakes include both venomous and innocent genera. They are none of them large, many of them of a brilliant green, and some of them exquisitely beautiful. Slender and active, the harmless kinds skim among the branches, which scarcely bend beneath their weight. Many of them have small and peculiarly arranged ventral shields, not requiring to hold on in progression; many also have long prehensile tails, which wind and cling while the little acrobats swing to and fro, or hang down to take a young bird or an egg out of the nest. The poisonous kinds of tree snakes abound in India, have a thick body, broad head, and a dull, sluggish habit, but still are handsome as to colour, and mostly green. They hide in the trunks of trees, or in the hollow forks of the branches, and rarely venture upon the ground. Some, however, live only in bushy foliage lower down, while other arboreal species frequent the highest branches, where, moving with amazing celerity, they are as much at home as the feathered inhabitants.

(4) Fresh-Water Snakes are especially adapted for an aquatic existence, and have their nostrils on the top of the snout, to enable them to breathe easily when in the water. Some of them can hold on to weeds or other things by their tails. They swim and dive, and are as active as eels. None are very large, and all are harmless. But a good many of the second group that are poisonous, spend so much of their time in the water that they are known as ‘water vipers,’ ‘water moccasins,’ etc., though not truly water snakes.

(5) Sea Snakes.—All highly venomous. These, as also the fresh-water snakes, are treated fully in chapters xiii. and xiv. The five divisions assist the student towards grasping an idea of the principal groups, but the whole five pass into each other by intermediate forms and imperceptible degrees.

Some other general characteristics of the Ophidia are that all are carnivorous, catching their prey alive; all are oviparous; and in organization and intelligence they rank between birds and fishes,—higher than fishes in having lungs, and lower than birds, which are warm-blooded animals. Their heart is so formed as to send only a portion of blood to the lungs on each contraction of it; their temperature, therefore, is that of the surrounding atmosphere (see p. 142). Their normal condition, particularly that of the venomous species, is one of lethargic repose and indolence, with a disposition to retreat and hide, rather than to obtrude themselves. On this account, and also because so many of them are nocturnal in their habits, less has been truly known of serpents than of most other creatures, prejudice having added to a prevailing indifference regarding them. The duration of their lives is uncertain, or whether they have a stated period of growth. Some naturalists think they grow all their lives; but this must not be taken literally, or that if a small snake happened to escape dangers, and live a very long while, it would acquire the dimensions of a python. Some think that formerly the constrictors did attain more formidable proportions than those of the present day.

Snakes have small brains, slight intelligence, and slow sensations, amounting almost to insensibility to pain. They can live a long while without their brains and without their heart; while the latter, if taken from the body, will continue its pulsations for a considerable time. Also if the head be severed, the body will for a certain time continue to move, coil, and even spring, and the head will try to bite, and the tongue dart out as in life.

Persons who dislike snakes continually ask, ‘What is the use of them?’ That they are not without a use will, I hope, appear in the course of this work, were it necessary to preach that all things have their use. But in one habit that offended Lord Bacon, viz. of ‘going on their belly,’ lies one of their greatest uses, because that, together with their internal conformation and external covering, enables them to penetrate where no larger carnivorous animal could venture, into dense and noisome morasses, bogs, jungles, swamps, amid the tangled vegetation of the tropics, where swarms of the lesser reptiles, on which so many of them feed, would otherwise outbalance the harmony of nature, die, and produce pestilences. Wondrously and exquisitely constructed for their habitat, they are able to exist where the higher animals could not; and while they help to clear those inaccessible places of the lesser vermin, they themselves supply food for a number of the smaller mammalia, which, with many carnivorous birds, devour vast numbers of young snakes. The hedgehog, weasel, ichneumon, rat, peccary, badger, hog, goat, and an immense number of birds keep snakes within due limits, while the latter perform their part among the grain-devouring and herbivorous lesser creatures. Thus beautifully is the balance of nature maintained.

Dr. Kirtland, an eminent naturalist of Ohio, who lived at a time when that State was being very rapidly settled, namely, during the early and middle part of the present century, observed a great increase of certain snakes as game birds which fed on them decreased. The latter were, of course, in request for the market, and the snakes, the ‘black snake’ particularly, having fewer enemies to consume him, flourished accordingly. It would be worth while to ascertain whether the farmer in Ohio had reason to rejoice over this redundancy of rat and vermin consumers. At the present time, when so much of the land is under cultivation, snakes have decreased again through human agency.

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