Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life

by Catherine Cooper Hopley

But examples of egg-eating snakes are not confined to India. America, the Cape colonies, and all snake countries are prolific of them.

Mr. P. H. Gosse in Jamaica killed a yellow boa (Chilobothrus inornatus), inside of which he found seven unbroken hen’s eggs. It had been caught in a rat trap.

Catesby, the early American naturalist, in describing the corn-coloured snake, says ‘it is harmless except as a robber of hens’ roosts.’ Lawson, the still earlier traveller, in his quaint description of the ‘Racer,’ or ‘black snake’ (Coluber constrictor), says:—‘He is an excellent Egg Merchant, for he does not suck the Eggs, but swallows them whole. He will often swallow all the Eggs from under a Hen that sits, and coil himself under the Hen in the nest, where sometimes the Housewife finds him.’ Lawson, also, describes the ‘Egg and Chicken Snake’ (a doubtful vernacular), ‘so called because it is frequent about the Hen-Yard, and eats Eggs and Chickens.’ The early American settlers guarded their poultry-yards against snakes as vigilantly as against rats, foxes, and other such predators. As for the ‘black snake,’ though non-venomous, all rearers of poultry visit him with vengeance.

Often in our rambles through the woods in Virginia we saw these snakes, and the swiftness with which they would vanish through the grass like a flash of steel, proved how well they merited their name of ‘Racer.’ These are the ‘black snakes’ par excellence, in distinction to the black water-viper and several other kinds which have more or less black about them. Sometimes they lay basking in our path, probably after a meal, when they become sleepy and inactive. On one such occasion I had an excellent opportunity of examining one of them, and of measuring it. It was exactly six feet long, and in the largest part as thick as a man’s arm. Its scales were beautifully bright, like an armour of steel, the white throat and pale under tints completing the resemblance of polished metal. It was sleeping on a soft carpet of moss and grass which bordered our sandy path, and which showed the Racer to great advantage. My young companion, a Virginian boy to whom no sport came amiss, espied it with delight, and ran to pick up a stout stick. Knowing that it was harmless, and so excellent a mouser, I pleaded for its life; for in truth the nocturnal visitors in the shape of rats at our country dwelling were so noisy and numerous, that I regarded the Racer as a friend rather to be encouraged and domesticated than ruthlessly slain. Its couch now, in its spring green and freshness, was enamelled with the star-like partridge-berry (Mitchella repens), dotted here and there with twin coral berries that had lingered through the winter; the bright-leaved, white-flowered winter green (Chimaphila maculata); the Bluets (Oldenlandia purpurea), and other exquisite little flowers too lovely to be crushed and tainted; while a sunbeam glancing through the trees, and showing up the polished scales of the unconscious Racer, all seemed eloquent with mercy.

It was the first time I had been close enough to touch so large a snake; and the whole scene is vividly before me now. Culprit though it might be, it was splendid and beautiful; and I entreated Johnny to wait and wake it up, so that we might watch its actions.

‘All very fine!’ cried the boy, not yet in his teens, ‘and fourteen more eggs gone from the hen-house last night!’

So he pounced upon a fallen bough, which he rapidly trimmed to suit his purpose, then with one sharp blow across the poor thing’s back, disabled it. I think the snake was quite killed by the blows the boy subsequently dealt, for I do not remember that it moved at all.

‘Now you can look at it as much as you please,’ said the juvenile sportsman as he straightened the reptile out to its full length. Then I examined and measured it, and found it was more than two lengths of my long-handled parasol. Black creatures with two hands and two legs were far more likely to be the egg-stealers than that poor Racer far off in the woods.

This ‘black snake’ climbs trees with ease, and hangs from a branch to reach a nest below him. ‘He is the nimblest creature living,’ says an old writer on Virginia, for he not only has the credit of stealing hens’ eggs, but he ‘even swallows the eggs of small birds, without breaking them,’ which again is a proof of the remarkable control these creatures possess of regulating the pressure of their powerful jaws.