“My closing word is this: eaters of seeds and eaters of insects, grosbeaks and slender-beaks, some in greater degree, some in less, all come to our aid. Peace, then, to the little birds, the joy of the country-side and the protectors of our crops!” CHAPTER XXXIV SNAKES AND LIZARDS “I propose to-day to undertake the defense of reptiles, which many people fear and dislike, even look upon with horror. I have shown you what services are rendered by bats despite the repugnance we feel for them. These animals, regarded by us as hideous and treated as enemies, I have brought you to look upon as valuable helpers, veritable swallows of the night, devoted to the extermination of twilight insects. As soon as reason illuminates the darkness of prejudice the detested creature is found to be a very useful animal. In like manner I shall now try to make you separate the false from the true in respect to the reptiles. Let us begin with the snake. “If to explain our dislike for bats we mention their strange and repulsive appearance, we have not the same excuse in regard to snakes. Their slender form is not lacking in grace, the suppleness they display in their undulating movements is pleasing to the eye, and their scaly skin is decorated with well-defined colors that are prettily arranged. Our aversion, then, must be otherwise explained. Some serpents are venomous; they are armed with a formidable and death-dealing weapon. Certainly it is not for these that I ask your favor. Indeed, if it were in my power to exterminate them all I would gladly free the earth of their presence. But others—and these are far more numerous—are not venomous and consequently are perfectly harmless unless they are large enough to hurt us by muscular force, which is not rare in the hot countries of the equator, but never to be feared in our part of the world, where the largest snake is not so strong as a mere child. Thus it is that some are much to be feared on account of their venom, while others, at least those of this region, are not in the least dangerous. But we are all too prone to lose sight of this difference in serpents. The evil reputation of the one with venomous fangs is fastened on all the others, so that we abhor them all alike because we believe them all to be venomous. In France we have only one venomous serpent, the viper, and all the others, large as well as small, are perfectly harmless and we will refer to them simply as snakes. “In one of our former talks [7] I told you about the viper, describing its form and coloring, the structure of its venomous apparatus, and the effects of its bite. I here repeat the principal facts then related, in order to give you now a connected account of our serpents as a class.