A DISJOINTED NARRATIVE.
I have read with much interest the discussion about the joint snake, and propose to give my experience with it. I have been familiar with the "joint," or, as we call it here, the "hook-and-eye," snake since I was a boy.
It is a snake of a brownish-yellow color, and grows to be about three feet long, but at any stage of its growth it can be unjointed or unhooked. It is fastened together by a hook-and-eye arrangement, exactly like those used on ladies' dresses.
On one occasion while out taking a walk I saw a joint snake crawling slowly along the top of an old stone wall; taking my cane, I gave it a smart jerk about the middle of the body, and it immediately unhooked into sixteen pieces, each about two inches long.
Taking the head part and putting it in my hat for safe keeping, I gathered up the joints, and laying them along in a row in just the reverse order in which they came apart, with all the eyes in contact, and also the hooks, I took the head part out of my hat, and laid it alongside of the middle of the row of joints.
It immediately began to move along the line, and without a moment's hesitation backed up to the first joint, when a little snap was heard and the first joint was hooked on. It repeated the process, and in the course of sixty-five seconds by the watch it was again a complete snake.
Again catching it I took out the ninth joint and also the fourteenth, and changed places with them, putting the ninth in place of the fourteenth and then let the snake go on.
He gave one or two wriggles, but finding there was something wrong commenced examining its joints from his head down, and when he came to the ninth took it out and laid it on one side, then crawling along the rest of his joints until he came to where the fourteenth ought to be, but where I had put the ninth, took that out and hooked it on to the eighth and then put the fourteenth back in its place, all of which was done in an incredibly small space of time.
Again I separated him, mixing the joints up promiscuously and hooking them together, having some difficulty in hooking the tail joint on to the head part, as the hook and eye did not get very well.
Letting the snake loose, in one hundred and fifteen seconds he was again properly jointed and I let him go.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.