Those Horse-hair Snakes
So they are called; and if the almost unanimous rustic opinion, with its ancient tradition and reliable witness, is to be credited, such they are in very truth. Indeed, there would seem to be few better attested facts in the whole range of natural history than the pedigree of this white or brown thread-like creature which is found in summer shallows and pools. Go where you will in the rural districts and it is the same old story. "They come from horse-hairs," and in some sections they are destined finally to become full-grown water-adders. It is commonly no mere theory. It is either an indisputable fact, tested by individual observation, or else is accepted as a matter of course, much as Pliny of old accepted the similar natural history "discoveries" of his time. He says, for example, on a similar subject, "I have heard many a man say that the marrow of a man's backbone will breed to a snake. And well it may so be, for surely there be many secrets in nature to us unknown, and much may come of hidden causes."
I have exchanged much comment on the subject of the hair snake with New England farmers. I have heard it claimed by one rural authority that a horse-hair bottled in water and placed in the sun will become a snake at second full moon. One prominent Granger, not to be outdone, went so far as to affirm that an old horse of his fell dead at the edge of the dam, and that the whole animal's tail squirmed off, and the pond was full of hair snakes in consequence. It becomes almost a matter of personal offence to the average countryman to question the truth of these statements. The hair snake is a fact—settled by their forefathers, and more true than ever to-day.
But snake stories, like fish stories, are always to be "taken with salt," and lest some of our younger readers may become converts to the rural authorities with whom they are perhaps associated in the summer outings, and in order also to relieve our long-suffering horse from this outrageous libel on its tail, it is well to settle our horse-hair snake story once and for all. To this end, I doubt if I can do better than to quote from memory a certain village store discussion of which the everlasting hair snake was the topic. I say "discussion," but this was hardly the proper term to apply to a general conversation in which all the parties seemed to agree. For some moments it consisted of anecdotes bearing on the subject, and each of the group had furnished his item of interest supporting the accepted theory of the horse-hair origin of the snake. Only one member of the company remained to be heard from, Amos Shoopegg, the village cobbler, who had kept silent, with somewhat sinister expression on his countenance as he listened with a sort of superior disdain to the various wonderful accounts, until at length, upon the recital of the story of the dead horse in the pond, he could contain himself no longer, and blurted out:
"Well, I swan, I never see sech a lot of dunceheels! I never hear sech fool talk since I's born. They ain't one on ye thet's got enny sense."
"Waal, haow much hev yeu gut?" asked the narrator of the dead-horse story, testily. "Yeu never see a har snake in yer life, and wouldn't know one from a side o' sole-leather er a waxed-end ef it wuz laid in yer lap."
"Not know 'em? I guess not," replied Amos. "I know more about 'em than the hull lot o' ye put together. Not know 'em! Law! hain't I seen 'em flyin' over the meddy by the hundreds in hayin'-time!"
A loud and long-continued guffaw concert greeted this surprising statement, a result which the shrewd cobbler had anticipated.
"We give in," remarked one sarcastic snake expert, when the laughter had subsided. "We give in. We don't enny on us know thet much," followed by another burst of derisive laughter.
"Thet's becuz yeu ornery critters hain't gut no sense," replied Amos, with warmth. "Ye beleve jest wut ennybody tells ye, or jest wut yer gran'ther beleved before ye, ez though yeur gran'ther knowed any more'n a hedge fence jest becuz he hed the misfortoon to be yeur gran'ther. My gran'ther sed so tew. But what on't? He warn't to blame. He didn't know no better. I do. Yeu say them snakes come from hoss-har. Like nuff they ain't one o' ye but b'leeves fer a fac' thet ef yer old har-cloth sofy wuz put to soak it wou'd all squirm off overnight. Ye see these ar har snakes in the hoss-trawf, and thet's enuff fer ye. Immejetly yeu hev yer 'hoss-har snake,' 'n' you're so sot they ain't no livin' with ye."
And so he went on, with occasional exclamatory or chaffing interruptions.
"Oh yis! Yeu know all about 'em, jest becuz ye hed a gran'ther who wuz a dunceheels. Nobody kin teech ye nothin', but I'll tek a leetle o' the conceit out o' ye afore I'm done with ye. Wut I know I know, 'n' wut I say I kin prove. 'N' if none o' yeu idjits hain't seen them har snakes a-flyin' over the meddy ez I sed, then ye don't know nothin' about 'em. I tell ye I've seen 'em 'n' caught 'em!"
"Say, Amos," slyly asked a jibing neighbor at his elbow, "wut did ye hev in the hayin'-pail that day?"
"Waal," drawled Amos, after the momentary laughter had subsided, "wutever it wuz, it 'd do yeu a power o' good ef yeu'd take one long pull on't. It would be a eye-opener fer ye, p'r'aps, 'n' yeu'd larn suthin'. You've ben fed with a spoon all yer life, 'n' ye swaller wutever they give ye without lookin'. Thet's wut ails yeu. Say," he continued, trying to get in a word edgewise in the prevalent hilarious din, "you idjits er havin' a mighty sight o' fun over this 'ere! I'll give ye a chance to show which on ye is the biggest fool. Doos any one o' ye want to bet me that ye ain't a pack o' dunces? Which on ye 'll bet me a scythe that wut I say about these ar flyin' snakes is all poppycut? Come, naow, I'm talkin' bizniss, and if ye ain't a lot o' cowards, p'r'aps you'll prove thet ye ain't. I say them snakes wuz a-flyin' around ez fast ez grasshoppers all over the meddy, 'n' ar flyin' thar naow, like all-possessed, 'n' I kin prove it. Naow who sez I kain't, and will wager me a new scythe on't?"
A momentary lull followed this challenge, but the bet was promptly taken by several of the company, the "dead-horse" story-teller being the first to rise to the bait.
In a moment Amos had left the store, and within a half-hour (barely long enough for him to have reached his home and returned) he reappeared with a box containing the "proofs" of his remarkable statement.
He won his bet, having introduced his sceptical hearers to the two prime authorities that knew more about hair snakes than all the rustic wiseacres or scientific professors put together, for his box was filled with grasshoppers and black crickets, including one or two specimens specially preserved in a small vial of alcohol, to show the parasitic snake coiled in its close spiral.
It is reported that Amos never got his scythe, however, the "dead-horse" story-teller having backed out on a technicality, claiming that Amos could not have seen the snakes, he said, and that the snakes had no wings, and consequently could not have been seen "flying" over the meadow; but the cobbler was at least the means of wiping out the hair-snake superstition in the village, and even to this day he is heard to sing out to the chaffing group at the village store, on occasions when he is crowded a little too far, "Who sed hoss-har snake?" He laughs best who laughs last.
There was nothing in the outward appearance of Amos to indicate an intelligence superior to that of his fellows, the secret of his present victorious position being found in the fact that he had been in the habit of making the most of his "summer boarders." One of these, during the present season, had been a college professor of biology, who had enlightened him on many puzzling matters of natural history, including the mystery of the hair snake, whose horse-hair origin he would once have maintained as stoutly as did his opponents at the village store.
My own early belief was influenced by the prevailing country opinion, and more than one is the horse hair which I have put to soak with interesting anticipation. By a mere accident the true source of the snake was discovered. I had procured a box of grasshoppers and crickets for bait, numbering some hundreds, and once, upon opening it, observed two of the thread-like creatures entangled like a snell among the insects. Further experience while baiting the hooks with the grasshoppers revealed others in the bodies of both crickets and grasshoppers, which seemed in no way disturbed by their presence.
So the "horse-hair snake" may be written down a myth. Its existence prior to the time we discover it in the brook or puddle has been spent under the hospitable roof of the insects mentioned, upon escaping from which it seeks the water to lay its eggs. The young in turn seek the grasshoppers and crickets which frequent their haunt, and thus the routine is continued, to the possible annoyance of the grasshopper and the complete mystification of the rural scientist.
