ng the last spring, in company with two
naturalists of eminence, we entered that apartment. A small lantern was
our only light, and the faint illumination of this, imparted a ghastly
character to the scene before us. The clear plate-glass which faces the
cages was invisible, and it was difficult to believe that the monsters
were in confinement and the spectators secure. Those who have only seen
the Boas and Pythons, the Rattlesnakes and Cobras, lazily hanging in
festoons from the forks of the trees in the dens, or sluggishly coiled up,
can form no conception of the appearance and actions of the same creatures
at night. The huge Boas and Pythons were chasing each other in every
direction, whisking about the dens with the rapidity of lightning,
sometimes clinging in huge coils round the branches, anon entwining each
other in massive folds, then separating they would rush over and under the
branches, hissing and lashing their tails in hideous sport. Ever and anon,
thirsty with their exertions, they would approach the pans containing
water and drink eagerly, lapping it with their forked tongues. As our eyes
became accustomed to the darkness, we perceived objects better, and on the
uppermost branch of the tree in the den of the biggest serpent, we
perceived a pigeon quietly roosting, apparently indifferent alike to the
turmoil which was going on around, and the vicinity of the monster whose
meal it was soon to form. In the den of one of the smaller serpents was a
little mouse, whose panting sides and fast-beating heart showed that it,
at least, disliked its company. Misery is said to make us acquainted with
strange bed-fellows, but evil must be the star of that mouse or pigeon
whose lot it is to be the comrade and prey of a serpent!

A singular circumstance occurred not long since at the Gardens, showing
that the mouse at times has the best of it. A litter of rattlesnakes was
born in the Gardens--curious little active things without rattles--hiding
under stones, or coiling together in complicated knots, with their
clustering heads resembling Medusa's locks. It came to pass that a mouse
was put into the cage for the breakfast of the mamma, but she not being
hungry, took no notice. The poor mouse gradually became accustomed to its
strange companions, and would appear to have been pressed by hunger, for
it actually nibbled away great part of the jaw of one of the little
rattlesnakes, so that it died! perhaps the first instance of