ur de force_ in the gentle art of lying, the snake-story is
justly esteemed. All the records in this particular branch of sport are
held in the United States of America, where proficiency at snakes is the
first qualification of a descriptive reporter. The old story of the two
snakes swallowing each other from the tail till both disappeared; the
story of the snake that took its own tail in its mouth and trundled
after its victim like a hoop; the story of the man who chopped a snake
in half just as it was bolting a rat, so that the rat merely toddled
through the foremost half and escaped--all these have been beaten out of
sight in America. At present Brazil claims the record for absolute
length of the snakes themselves; but the Yankee snake-story man will
soon claim that record too. He will explain that each State pays a
reward for every snake killed within its own limits; but that there are
always disputes between the different States as to payment; because most
of the snakes killed are rather large, crawling across several States at
once.

[Illustration: "HA!"]

[Illustration: "HO!"]

Here, among a number of viperine snakes of about the same size, is a
snake that lives on eggs. He is about as thick as a lead pencil, but
that doesn't prevent his swallowing a large pigeon's egg whole, nor even
a hen's egg at a pinch. It dislocates his jaw, but that is a part of his
professional system, and when the business is over he calmly joints up
his jaw again and goes to sleep. He is eccentric, even for a snake, and
wears his teeth on his backbone, where they may break the egg-shell so
that he may spit it away. When he first stretched his head round an egg,
the viperine snakes in the same case hastily assumed him to be a very
large tadpole; and since tadpoles are regarded with gastronomical
affection by viperine snakes, they began an instant chase, each prepared
to swallow the entire phenomenon, because a snake never hesitates to
swallow anything merely on account of its size. When finally the
egg-swallower broke the egg, and presented to their gaze the crumpled
shell, the perplexed viperines subsided, and retired to remote corners
of the case to think the matter over and forget it--like the crowd
dispersed by the circulating hat of the street-conjurer.

[Illustration: "MINE!"]

[Illustration: "WHAT!"]

[Illustration: "LAWKS!"]

Familiarity with the snake breeds toleration. He is a lawless sort of
creature, certainly, with