April 1st, 1881.—After this date nothing more was to be seen! Henceforth visitors were to be excluded, and the reptiles were to be fed after sunset.
Now, however painfully and sympathetically we may regard those poor little birds so unceremoniously seized, crushed, and devoured, we can but reverently, and almost with awe, admire the astonishing facility with which these limbless, toolless reptiles provide themselves with food. With still deeper awe and reverence we shall admire when we examine their anatomical structure, and see by what marvellous development it has been adapted to their necessities.
We feel sadly for the finches, it is true; because finches are often our pets, and are sweet songsters. Were a toad or a rat thus treated, we should care less, perhaps; because there is as much repugnance towards toads and ‘vermin,’ as towards snakes.
But if the finches did not become the prey of snakes, they would become the victims of bird-catchers and milliners; and if they escaped these wanton spoilers, they would fall victims to birds of prey, as much larger birds fall victims to our own need of food.
Reptiles also have existence and requirements, and an organization adapted to such requirements. This should be their claim upon our tolerance; and if they do not win our admiration, we cannot deny them the right to live, the right to feed according to their instincts, and to secure their natural food in their own way, which—begging the reader to pardon this feeble moralizing—we find to be a very wonderful way.
Though the term ‘reptile’ is applied to a whole tribe of crawling creatures, whether four-legged or limbless, that are covered with scales, horny plates, or a skin more or less hardened, imbricated, or rugose (viz. crocodiles, lizards, frogs, toads, serpents, and their congeners), snakes are more truly reptiles, being limbless, from repo, to creep. Hence serpents (from serpo, to creep, and its derivatives serpentine, serpentize, etc., from serpens, winding) have been separated from the rest. The true serpents, therefore, are those without feet, and which move only close to the ground, by the sinuations of their body.
We have seen that the constricting snakes use this body as a substitute for hands, literally managing with it; but though they are externally legless, and apodal (without feet), the truth is that few creatures, none perhaps, not even millipedes, are more liberally furnished with legs and feet than serpents. One curious exception to general rules is, that while other creatures have the same number of feet as legs, that is, one foot to each leg, a snake has only one foot to each pair of legs!