The chase on land again took place, and ere the squirrel could reach another tree, the snake had seized it by the back, near the occiput, and soon rolled itself about it in such a way, that although I heard the cries of the victim, I scarcely saw any portion of its body. So full of its ultimate object was the snake, that it paid no attention to me, and I approached it to see in what manner it would dispose of its prey. A few minutes elapsed, when I saw the reptile loosening gradually and opening its folded coils, until the squirrel was entirely disengaged, having been killed by suffocation. The snake then raised its body from the ground, and passed its head over the dead animal in various ways, to assure itself that life had departed; it then took the end of the squirrel’s tail, swallowed it gradually; bringing first one and then the other of the hind legs parallel with it, and sucked with difficulty, and for some time, at them and the rump of the animal, until its jaws became so expanded, that, after this, it swallowed the whole remaining parts with apparent ease. This mass of food was removed several inches from the head in the stomach of the snake, and gave it the appearance of a rouleau of money in a purse with both ends towards its centre; for, immediately after the operation of swallowing was completed, the jaws and neck resumed their former appearance. The snake then attempted to move off, but this was next to impossible; when, having cut a twig, I went up to it, and tapped it on the head, which it raised, as well as its tail, and began for the first time to rattle. I was satisfied that, for some lapse of time, it could not remove far, and that the woods being here rather thin, it would soon become the victim of a vulture. I then killed it, and cut it open, to see how the squirrel lay within. I had remarked that after the process of swallowing was completed, singular movements of the body had taken place; a kind of going to and fro for a while, not unlike the convulsive motions of a sick animal, as a dog, for instance, going to vomit. I concluded that some internal and necessary operation was going on. This was proved, when I found the squirrel lying perfectly smooth, even to its hair, from its nose to the tip of its tail. I noted all this on the spot. This over, I sought my game again, and felt a great satisfaction; but having met my friend, Mr. James Perry, on whose lands, in Louisiana, I was then hunting, and having related what had just happened, he laughingly said, “Why, my dear sir, I could have told you this long ago, it being nothing new to me.” These facts, I trust, are quite sufficient to exemplify the faculties of swiftness, and the powers of extension and diminution, in the rattlesnake.--_Mr. Audubon’s Notes on the Rattlesnake._ * * * * * BUTTER was not known to the Greeks; they have no word which gives an idea of it. There is Time Enough.