Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life

by Catherine Cooper Hopley

In Nature, vol. xx. p. 529, Mr. Hutchinson describes and illustrates an exactly similar feat accomplished by a ‘little snake’ nine inches long. It was put in a glass jar ten inches high, having also for a cover a bit of coarse muslin secured by an elastic band. The reptile was missing, the muslin and the band were intact, when, after a mysterious surprise and search, the little snake was found under the rim of the jar inside the muslin. The writer does not say what snake it was, but he afterwards observed it ‘ascending easily,’ standing on the tip of its tail, and supporting itself against the side of the jar by the abdominal scales creating a vacuum, ‘like the pedal scales of a common house lizard;’ it was not a slow-worm, therefore. He felt quite satisfied about this adaptation of the scutæ, a mode which, in describing the larger snakes climbing up their glass cages, I called ‘compressure,’ p. 215. Mr. Hutchinson does not tell us, either, how much earth or rubbish covered the floor of the jar, though there must have been an inch or more, to enable a snake of nine inches to raise its head over a ledge ten inches high. Lizzie not having ventral scales to help her, used her tail only as a support, then nicely maintaining the perpendicular. Many times she failed in achieving success, but she did achieve it, and grew so enterprising in consequence that I shall now confine my story to her. At first she lived in a box, the top of which she could easily look over, and she was occasionally permitted to get out and ramble among some ferns on the same table. Sometimes this box was also covered with a muslin, having elastic hemmed into it, and she soon discovered that this with persevering attempts could be raised. The use of the tail was here remarkable. With it she maintained her ‘stand,’ so to speak, while with her head and the forepart of her body she tried to loosen the net; using persistent and powerful efforts to lift it, by repeatedly tossing back her head. She acted in every way as if determined not to be baffled, and with an apparent intention or reflection that was, without doubt, the result of experience. In higher creatures this application of force to produce a certain result would be pronounced ‘intelligence.’ In the little slow-worm there was undeniably a perception of cause and effect. On one occasion when she had got her tail on the edge of the box, and her whole length in the stretched muslin along the top, she so far succeeded with the forcible action of the head that she worked the very strong and tight elastic up, but not at all to her own satisfaction; for it instantly contracted under her, bagging her most effectually. She was caught in a trap of her own construction.

Seeing her so wonderfully energetic, and by no means ‘slow,’ either in action or intelligence, the next thing was to ascertain whether Lizzie was ‘deaf’ in addition to her other pseudo-failings; but by the various tests used to exercise her aural faculties, I am inclined to think her powers of hearing served her almost better than those of sight. When permitted to ramble among the plants and over the table, the sound much more than the sight of her box and its contents attracted her. Never averse to go home and retreat into her moss, the rustling of this or the scraping and rubbing the sides of the box—any noise with it with which she was familiar, would cause her to turn towards it, when the sight of it alone failed to entice her. After a time she turned her head, if even from across the room I made a sudden and sharp noise to attract her attention,—such as the tapping of a spoon against a cup, or the peculiar talk I indulged in for educational purposes. She undoubtedly became familiar with certain sounds, which were repeated till she did look round. Not—as I am bound to confess—that it was a strikingly intelligent look! rather the contrary, I fear: still, as the object was to test her powers of hearing, the result was satisfactory. The origin of this reputed deafness is difficult to conjecture. In the way of external ears, those of the slow-worm are less distinct than those of lizards generally, but more so than in snakes, which have no visible aural apertures; whereas in the slow-worms they can be discerned if sought for, though they are very small and indistinct.

Not much less perplexing is the supposititious ‘blindness’ of the slow-worm. This must have had its origin in days long before ‘gentle-folk’ took rural walks for the purpose of observing natural objects; long before Shakspeare’s time, and when slow-worms were far more numerous than now. Probably those who saw most of them were the peasantry, and that in winter time, when, in their out-door work, they would discover a number hibernating. A score or two of slow-worms in company with a few snakes and adders brought to light in turning up stones or earth, would attract the rustics, when a stray one in summer time would pass unnoticed or, at any rate, unexamined. Though the larger reptiles would be equally torpid, their eyes would show all the same, while the slow-worm’s eyes would be so tightly closed that their place could hardly be found. Thus they were presumably ‘blind.’ This is mere conjecture in seeking a reason, but ‘blind worms’ they were in England long before the typhlops (p. 187) of the tropics was known, and long before any other ‘naturalist’ than Topsell and his like wrote upon ‘Serpentes’ and the Amphisbæna Europæa.

Lizzie in a knot.

Topsell, by the way, whom we quoted on the subject of tongues, thought he knew all about slow-worms, and gave them credit for a length and power of tail far exceeding those of the present day. ‘They have been seen to suck a Cow, for then they twist their Tailes about the Cowe’s Legges. The Slow-worm biteth mortallie, and the Cow dyeth!’ Consistent this with the ‘Blind-worm’s sting’ of the poet of that day. Of the six or seven that have been in my keeping at one time or another, not one has, under any provocation, attempted to bite me. They were handled continually, twirled about, and tied into knots (with gentle treatment, of course), but not one of them ever broke itself in ‘halves’ or opened its mouth with malice intent. Lizzie sometimes in winding about my fingers got herself into very pretty knots, and in such tied-up fashion when placed on the table she would remain motionless for a time, and then begin to move away. Curious was the effect at this juncture. The knot was not loosened at all; but as the little reptile began to move, the knot passed downwards, and she crawled out of it, while its form remained the same to the very end of the tail. It was similar to what we saw when the little four-rayed snakes constricted their birds; the form of their coils altering no more than would a slide passed along a rope. Neither did such a knot disturb Lizzie. She appeared quite unconscious of it, and simply crawled out of it. Perhaps any ‘brittleness’ discoverable may have been from rough handling, as one can easily suppose a too abrupt untwining of the reptile when clinging round the fingers would so alarm it that it would cling the tighter. A gentleman assured me that he had seen one break in ‘halves,’ and the two portions lying on the table. Not being a scientific observer, he could not describe the appearance of the fractured part, except that they seemed to contract; and this is what I have observed in the tail of lizards when accidentally abridged. The owners do not appear, however, to concern themselves about it.

The name ‘worm’ given to this little reptile is merely as a creeping thing, a ‘worm of the earth,’ in common with many other small crawling creatures which are not earth-worms. Its quality of ‘slowness’ is only another name for caution. Quick and active it can be; but in retreating down among the moss or hay, or whatever you provide in its cage, then you see the perfection of slowness. Not a blade stirs, not a sound is heard, and one may repeat here that the manner of progression in Anguis fragilis is not the least of all the ophidian wonders we have witnessed. In the earth it can burrow itself to the depth of several feet. In soft rubbish it simply vanishes slowly; its hard, polished scales permitting it, as it were, to slide down into and among the hay with that gently gliding motion which enables us to perceive how very well it does manage without the ancestral limbs.

One other name it has, ‘adder,’ which, perhaps from association with the true adder or viper, has gained it its evil character of being venomous.

But this word ‘adder,’ like ‘worm,’ was formerly used for many creeping things, and is derived from old Saxon and Danish words atter, eddre, ætter, etc., and the German natter, which has a similar signification, any low-lying or crawling creature. Even in this nineteenth century the ‘slow-worm’ still bears an evil character in some rural districts, and in Wales more particularly.