No theory has been offered by men of science why some species of snakes should be provided with venomous fangs, while others have no such advantage, and there have been hot arguments whether the original father of all snakes was or was not so furnished. The balance of probability would certainly appear to be with those who argue that he must have had venomous teeth. Had it not been so, it is difficult to believe that his descendants could by any process of survival or selection have established poison bags in their jaws, with the necessary apparatus for passing that poison through hollows in the fangs. Upon the other hand, it is easy to understand that had the snakes all been originally so furnished, some of them might, either from accident or from incautiously grasping a round stone under the belief that it was a bird’s egg, have knocked out their fangs, and that their descendants might have been born without them. We have, indeed, an example of similar action in the case of the Manx cat, who, being descended from an ancestor which had, either by traps or otherwise, the misfortune to lose his tail, begot a race of tail-less cats, whose descendants have to the present day lacked the usual caudal appendage. If, then, a cat could transmit this accidental peculiarity to his descendants, there can be no reason to doubt that, in some cases, a snake having lost his poison fangs could be the father of a race of snakes similarly deficient.
As might be expected, the largest snakes all belong to the non-venomous species. Being unprovided with the teeth that enabled their congeners to slay their prey or combat enemies, the fangless snakes would naturally devise other means to procure a living. Having no offensive weapons, they would recognise at once that some entirely novel means must be hit upon. They could neither bite nor tear their prey: they could neither stun it with blows, nor, like the crocodile, drown it. It was, we may suppose, to a snake of exceptional genius that the idea occurred of squeezing a foe to death. The idea was, doubtless, received with enthusiasm, but to be carried into effect against any but the smallest of creatures it was clearly necessary that the fangless snakes should attain far larger dimensions than those possessed by any of the species furnished with poison fangs. However, the idea once mooted, Mr. Darwin’s system of natural selection would do the rest. The smaller individuals remained small, and from them sprang the blind worm and other species of harmless snakes. The larger individuals paired together, and keeping the one object steadily before them, in time their descendants attained the gigantic proportions of the fossil serpents, who could have mastered and made a meal of the Mastodon as easily as the largest boa now existing could dispose of a rabbit. With the disappearance of the huge prehistoric animals, the serpent must have seen that unless he were to perish of hunger it was necessary for him to reduce his size; and by a long process, the exact reverse of that by which he had built up his bulk, he diminished himself to dimensions which, though still vastly greater than those of the poisonous snake, were yet in exact proportion to the size of the animals that were henceforth to furnish him with food.
So far there has been no marked change in the sentiments which man and the snake have entertained towards each other from the earliest times; and it is probable that at no distant date, when man has peopled the world to its utmost limits, the snake will find that it is incumbent upon him to go.
FROGS.
THERE can be no doubt that frogs do not stand as high as they ought to do in the estimation of the world. They are regarded as creatures of little account, and their large mouths and general emptiness have told against them, though why this should be so can hardly be explained, seeing that several human beings possessing precisely the same characteristics are regarded as great statesmen. But these physical peculiarities are, after all, a minor consideration, and the low estimation in which frogs are regarded really arises from an irreparable misfortune which has befallen the whole race—namely, their inability to stand upright. It is this inability which has sunk the frog so low in the scale of creation. Had he possessed the power of standing upright, his striking resemblance to a somewhat stout human being would have been so remarkable, that it is probable he would have ranked even higher than the monkey as a type, if not as an ancestor, of man. Any one who has seen well executed specimens of frogs set up in the attitudes of human beings, must have been struck with the extraordinary resemblance, and a community of frogs capable of walking would undoubtedly be regarded by men as the closest assimilation in the animal world to human forms and ways. Frogs, no doubt, owe this loss of the power of walking to the persistent habit of their early ancestors of sitting in the water, a habit which, at first, naturally resulted in lumbago, and finally deprived them and their descendants of the proper use of their lower limbs.
In the earlier ages of the world there is strong evidence that frogs had not lost this power; and the learned may without difficulty assign the origin of all the early legends of pixies, brownies, and dwarfs to the accidental discovery by ignorant rustics of communities of frogs, which had not, as yet, lost the power of walking. It may, of course, be urged that even admitting the existence of troops of little manikins with human motions, this would not account for the long conversations and strange doings reported of the brownies and pixies, were these nothing but frogs with the power of standing and walking upright. But such an argument fails to take into consideration the united power of superstition and imagination. Have not elaborate ghost stories originated upon no more solid basis than a shadow upon a wall, a fluttering garment, or a wreath of evening mist? Are not the Irish peasantry full of stories of the most detailed adventures with fairies, and are not all popular myths built up on the most slender foundations? The frightened peasant who, returning from work in the gloaming, first came upon a tribe of frogs walking about like human beings, would, upon reaching home, scared out of his senses, magnify what he had seen. Not content with describing the tribe of little men, clad in green and brown jerkins, he would be sure to invent further wonders in the way of conversation, and, as his story spread, so it would grow, until the existence of a race of brownies would become locally believed in. The next rustic who came upon the tribe of frogs would of course outvie the first discoverer in the fulness of his details; and thus we can see how, upon the foundation afforded by the frogs who had not yet lost their power of walking upright, the whole superstructure of brownies, pixies, and elves would naturally be raised.
No one who has closely watched the habits of a frog can doubt that he possesses great thinking powers, and a fund of information, inherited or acquired. His habit of sitting motionless is clearly identical with that of the philosophic thinker. There can be no reason why he should so long remain in the same attitude, save that he is meditating. His weather-wisdom is notorious; he descries the approach of wet weather long before any change is visible to the duller sense of man. As an athlete he is remarkable, in spite of his comparatively disproportionate girth; he can leap long distances, and as a swimmer he is unrivalled. Although habitually silent, he is capable of sustaining a lively conversation, and even of singing. These accomplishments he is chary of displaying in this country, having experience of the proneness of the rustic boy to cast stones at him; but in countries such as Italy, where the boy is less aggressive and the frog more numerous, the force and power with which a tribe of frogs will lift up their voices in chorus is astounding.