A propos of the foregoing, I may here make full confession of how
I FOUND A SNAKE IN REGENT'S PARK.
The following incident may prove interesting to the public in general and naturalists in particular:
While taking an early walk in Regent's Park on Saturday, June 12th, 1894, I captured, not the proverbial worm, but a specimen of a rare species of snake, which was indulging in a constitutional on one of the broad paths. "What a gigantic worm!" was my first thought, but on my using my stick to arrest its further progress it rose in the orthodox snake-like fashion at my cane, throwing itself into an attitude of defence and hissing with anger. The park-keeper, park-labourers who were mowing the grass close by, and divers members of the British public, from the piscatorial street arab with his minnow-ensnaring thread and bent pin to the portly merchant wending Citywards, were soon on the spot, and really that diminutive reptile caused more consternation than would have been the case had it been instead an Anarchist bomb. I sent over to the cricket pavilion for a tin canister wherein to cage pro tem. the wily stranger, and excitement waxed high as preparations were made to accomplish the fearsome feat. This was safely managed by the aid of a newspaper, which naturally enough, considering the events of the week, proved to be of a sporting character, and the viper, probably anxious as to the result of the Oaks, glided to the column containing that news, whence it was expeditiously shaken into the canister, which I perforated at the top, and walked off with my tinned snake to the Zoological Gardens hard by, where its roaming propensities were kept in check within the walls of the reptile house.
I was somewhat startled to learn that my captive had not escaped from the Gardens, which did not contain one of its species, and Mr. Bartlett gave it as his opinion that there must have been a number more wherever this one came from. This new danger further enhanced the charms of Regent's Park, which on Saturdays is a perfect pandemonium, the pedestrian having to exert a great deal of agility to dodge the whizzing cricket balls and avoid being maimed for life. Now that we have had snakes in the grass we may expect vultures in the air, and who knows that in time to come we may not be shooting big game in the jungles of the north-west!
The above is the substance of a letter I wrote to the Times, the publication of which caused no little consternation in some papers and no little chaff, at my expense, in others. The London evening papers appeared with startling contents bills and sensational headings:
The Westminster Gazette, "In the hope of gleaning some valuable information about this newly-discovered fearful reptile which lies in wait for wayfarers in the wilds of Northern London," sent a representative post-haste to interview Mr. Bartlett, the superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. This report in the Westminster is headed:
"He thought he saw an elephant
Upon the mantelpiece;
He looked again, and found it was
His sister's husband's niece,"
and then proceeds to throw doubt upon my veracity.
