“I do not tell you this to encourage you to capture these creatures and make playthings of them; on the contrary, I wish you to leave them alone, but I also desire to remove an unwarranted fear, the fear of snakes that is so prevalent in country districts. Fear, always an evil counselor, never does a good deed in prompting one to throw stones at a harmless creature found in a hole in the wall. The passer-by attacks it with his stick if he sees it crossing the road, and the mower in the hay-field cuts off its head with his scythe. Were they not listening to a foolish fear and yielding to an unreasonable dislike, they would leave the poor thing in peace and no one would be the worse for it, as snakes not only are harmless, but they render us excellent service by destroying numerous insects and small rodents such as meadow-mice and field-mice. From this point of view, snakes deserve protection and not the hatred that is commonly felt for them.” “But,” objected Louis, “they say snakes can charm birds by their gaze and draw them into their open mouth by first overcoming them with their poisonous breath. Helpless, the bird plunges headlong into the creature’s horrible gullet.” “There is a grain of truth in what you say, but far more untruth, the result of popular superstition which deliberately credits the serpent with sorcery. In the first place, the breath of a serpent, or of any reptile whatever, has nothing poisonous about it, nothing magically attractive, nothing supernatural. You all have too much common sense to make it necessary for me to dwell on these ridiculous tales. There remains only the belief that the bird is charmed by the reptile’s hard, fixed gaze. The marvel of this amounts in reality to very little. “Some of our snakes are very fond of birds’ eggs. They climb trees, search out the nests, and eat the eggs when the mothers are not there to protect them. More than one human nest-robber who thought he was seizing a jay’s or a blackbird’s brood has put his hand instead on the cold coiled body of a reptile in the bottom of the nest. I have even known instances in which the plunderers, seized with horror at this unexpected encounter, fell backward from the tree-top and did not come out of the adventure without broken bones. A warning to others. The larger snakes do not content themselves with eggs, but devour the young birds as well, even those that are outside the nest when they can catch them, which fortunately is not easy. Imagine an innocent little bird surprised by a snake in the underbrush. The poor little thing suddenly sees before it a mouth horribly wide open and glittering eyes regarding it steadily. Scared almost to death, the bird loses its head and is powerless to take flight. In vain it beats its wings, cries plaintively, and finally falls from the branch, paralyzed and dying. The monster lying in wait catches the poor thing in its mouth.