skin. After
holding it in my hand a few moments it flew away. I then tried to find
the snake, but could not. I am unable to say whether the snake was
venomous or belonged to the constricting family, like the black snake.
I can well recollect it was large and moved off rather slow. As I had
never seen anything of the kind before, it made a great impression on
my mind, and after the lapse of so long a time, the incident appears as
vivid to me as though it had occurred yesterday."

It is not probable that the snake had its mouth open; its darting tongue
may have given that impression.

The other incident comes to me from Vermont. "While returning from
church in 1876," says the writer, "as I was crossing a bridge... I
noticed a striped snake in the act of charming a song-sparrow. They were
both upon the sand beneath the bridge. The snake kept his head swaying
slowly from side to side, and darted his tongue out continually. The
bird, not over a foot away, was facing the snake, hopping from one foot
to the other, and uttering a dissatisfied little chirp. I watched them
till the snake seized the bird, having gradually drawn nearer. As he
seized it, I leaped over the side of the bridge; the snake glided away
and I took up the bird, which he had dropped. It was too frightened to
try to fly and I carried it nearly a mile before it flew from my open
hand."

If these observers are quite sure of what they saw, then undoubtedly
snakes have the power to draw birds within their grasp. I remember that
my mother told me that while gathering wild strawberries she had on one
occasion come upon a bird fluttering about the head of a snake as if
held there by a spell. On her appearance, the snake lowered its head and
made off, and the panting bird flew away. A neighbor of mine killed
a black snake which had swallowed a full-grown red squirrel, probably
captured by the same power of fascination.

THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS

The life of the birds, especially of our migratory song-birds, is a
series of adventures and of hair-breadth escapes by flood and field.
Very few of them probably die a natural death, or even live out half
their appointed days. The home instinct is strong in birds as it is in
most creatures; and I am convinced that every spring a large number
of those which have survived the Southern campaign return to their old
haunts to breed. A Connecticut farmer took me out under his porch, one
April day, and showed me a