To throw a big stone at the snake was the first performance. Then some one ran for a cane to beat the monster; but the snake had concluded that discretion was the better part of valor, and waited only to receive one good blow, before he glided off among the bushes so swiftly that we could not find him. Where these big climbing snakes are numerous, the birds have a hard time to raise a brood, for the snakes destroy the nests, and devour alike parents and fledglings. Except for their attacks on the birds, tree-climbing snakes are usually of the harmless kind, and are sometimes even useful. There is, however, a tree snake in hot countries, which seems to have a spiteful disposition, and darts from the branches at the eyes and faces of passers-by, often inflicting a sharp, though not poisonous wound. I once formed the acquaintance of a girl who acted as “snake-charmer” in a museum. She astonished the public by going into a glass cage filled with snakes, which she handled and played with. She held the snakes in her lap, twined them about her neck and arms, and made free with them in many ways. She told me confidentially, that while these snakes looked as if they were terrible monsters, they were the most of them fangless and of harmless varieties. Those which were of poisonous species had been rendered safe playthings by having their fangs cut out. The poisonous snakes have a poison sac or bag, which empties into a little duct or canal running along each side of the jaw to a large tooth or fang; by an action of the throat muscles, the serpent presses poison from the sac through the canal, and ejects it through the tooth as it bites. By cutting out the fangs the snake is rendered harmless, but only for the time being. The poison apparatus reproduces itself, and unless the process of growth is watched and the fang again cut out, the lately harmless snake may suddenly become harmful, and the snake-charmer be fatally wounded. “The poisonous ones do not keep from biting because I charm them, or because they like me,” said the snake-charmer frankly. “Snakes never know or like anybody, so far as I can see; it is only that they can’t bite, that’s all. Folks think the snakes love me because they coil about me. It is only because I am warm that they do that. They are cold creatures, the snakes, and they like the heat of my arms, neck, and lap, that’s all.” Among the snakes without poison glands are the pythons, the species that watches over and incubates its eggs. The mother python coils herself round and over the eggs, and for three months retains this position, until the little ones are hatched. She seems to be very fond of her young, and is the model mother of all the snake tribe. The larger pythons eat birds, cats, rabbits, hares, frogs, and dogs. They seldom meddle with human beings in any way. The sand snakes are nearly related to the pythons and are also non-poisonous.