In conclusion, it will readily be perceived from the foregoing brief description of the method of employing crude shale oil as a fuel, how considerable are the advantages therefrom accruing; how important is the attempt—the first it is stated that has been made in Scotland—to utilise a substance hitherto regarded as little beyond a waste product.
DO SNAKES EVER COMMIT SUICIDE?
A correspondence as to whether snakes, when irritated or tormented to exasperation, will strike themselves with their own fangs and so commit suicide, has been going on for some weeks in Nature. The following striking story is given by an Indian correspondent, as an incident which he once witnessed:
‘I was quite small,’ he writes, ‘but my memory of the strange occurrence is very clear and distinct. It was in the state of Illinois, when at that early day a short, thick variety of rattlesnake was very numerous, so much so, that the state acquired an unenviable reputation in the older parts of the Union. Farmers in “breaking prairie,” as the first ploughing of the prairie sod was called, would kill them by dozens in the course of a single summer. They were very venomous; but, owing to their sluggish nature and their rattle, which was always sounded before an attack, few persons were bitten by them. Moreover, there was little danger of death if proper remedies were applied at once.
‘I was one day following one of the large breaking-ploughs common at that time. It was drawn by five or six yoke of oxen, and there were two men to manage the plough and the team. As we were going along, one of the men discovered a rattlesnake, as I remember about twelve or fourteen inches in length. They rarely exceeded eighteen or twenty inches, so that this one was probably about two-thirds grown. The man who first saw it was about to kill it, when the other proposed to see if it could be made to bite itself, which it was commonly reported the rattlesnake would do if angered and prevented from escaping. Accordingly, they poked the snake over into the ploughed ground, and then began teasing it with their long whips. Escape was impossible, and the snake soon became frantic at its ineffectual attempts either to injure its assailants or to get away from them. At last it turned upon itself and struck its fangs into its own body, about the middle. The poison seemed to take effect instantly. The fangs were not withdrawn at all; and if not perfectly dead within less than five minutes, it at least showed no signs of life. That it should die so quickly will not seem strange if it is borne in mind that the same bite would have killed a full-grown man in a few hours’ time. The men watched it long enough to be sure that it would not be likely to move away, and then went on with their work. I trudged around with them for an hour or more, and every time we came where the snake was, I stopped and looked at it; but it never moved again. In this case, I do not remember that the snake had been injured at all. I have often heard of rattlesnakes biting themselves under such circumstances; but this was the only case that ever came under my observation.—W. R. Manley.’
A STORY THAT NEVER GROWS OLD.
A youth and a maiden low-talking,
He eager; she, shrinking and shy;
A blush on her face as she listens,
And yet a soft tear in her eye.