Who can give Us a Morsel on This?
An experience I once had with a garter-snake leads me to believe that the family to which it belongs consists of more than one variety. One warm day in May, while scouring the woods in search of something of interest, I came upon a small pool at the edge of the woods, seemingly a drinking-place for cattle. Yet the water was black with a myriad of tadpoles, presided over by a monster frog—the largest I have ever seen. I was interested in the queer little wigglers, and did not notice the approach of a large snake, making its way to the pool, till it had taken its fill of water, as I then supposed. I quickly picked up a stone and killed the snake, at first thinking it to be a water-adder. A second glance showed it to be an unusually large garter-snake, less brilliantly striped than any I had before seen.
I was about to leave the pool when I saw that the reptile's paunch was considerably swollen, and that in it some live creature was imprisoned. This aroused my curiosity, and in another moment I had opened the paunch. To my astonishment seven squirming tadpoles wriggled out upon the ground. I placed them in the pool, and all swam off as briskly as before they had, Jonah-like, been swallowed by a hungry monster.
Since this experience I have questioned in vain whether or not there is a separate variety of the garter-snake which lives in or near the water; or whether the snake was of the common variety, and simply forced by hunger to make a meal of tadpoles. Can some one enlighten me?
Vincent V. M. Beede, R.T.F.
East Orange, N. J.
One Way to Learn.
One of the best ways to broaden one's mental horizon, to make one think of more than the familiar things about him, is to enter into correspondence with persons who live in distant States and countries. You can find such correspondents in a variety of ways. Look in your geography and see the name of a town in a far distant part of the country. Perhaps it is a small village. It has a principal of a public school. Write him a letter, briefly stating your purpose, and ask him for the name of a pupil who wishes to correspond with you.
Are you interested in stamps, bugs, butterflies, minerals, rocks, plants, autographs, cameras, amateur papers—anything? Enclose in your letter a good specimen. It will interest somebody and hardly fail to bring you a response. You can also find addresses through Sunday-school teachers, Round Table Chapters, etc. Or you can, upon meeting a friend, ask him or her for names of relatives who might like to correspond, trade specimens, etc.