instinct, also, is very strong, and
that simple structure of dead twigs and dry grass is the center of
much anxious solicitude. Not long since, while strolling through the
woods, my attention was attracted to a small densely grown swamp,
hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting smilax, from
which proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some
terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. On
effecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I had
doffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the
thorns and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard of
terra firma, I found myself the spectator of a loathsome yet
fascinating scene. Three or four yards from me was the nest, beneath
which, in long festoons, rested a huge black snake; a bird two thirds
grown was slowly disappearing between his expanded jaws. As he seemed
unconscious of my presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. By
slow degrees he compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; his
head flattened, his neck writhed and swelled, and two or three
undulatory movements of his glistening body finished the work. Then he
cautiously raised himself up, his tongue flaming from his mouth the
while, curved over the nest, and with wavy subtle motions, explored
the interior. I can conceive of nothing more overpoweringly terrible
to an unsuspecting family of birds than the sudden appearance above
their domicile of the head and neck of this arch-enemy. It is enough
to petrify the blood in their veins. Not finding the object of his
search, he came streaming down from the nest to a lower limb, and
commenced extending his researches in other directions, sliding
stealthily through the branches, bent on capturing on of the parent
birds. That a legless, wingless creature should move with such ease
and rapidity where only birds and squirrels are considered at home,
lifting himself up, letting himself down, running out on the yielding
boughs, and traversing with marvelous celerity the whole length and
breadth of the thicket, was truly surprising. One thinks of the great
myth of the Tempter and the "cause of all our woe," and wonders if the
Arch One is not now playing off some of his pranks before him. Whether
we call it snake or devil matters little. I could but admire his
terrible beauty, however; his black, shining folds, his easy, gliding
movement, head erect, eyes glistening, tongue play