Often in our rambles through the woods in Virginia we saw these snakes, and the swiftness with which they would vanish through the grass like a flash of steel, proved how well they merited their name of ‘Racer.’ These are the ‘black snakes’ _par excellence_, in distinction to the black water-viper and several other kinds which have more or less black about them. Sometimes they lay basking in our path, probably after a meal, when they become sleepy and inactive. On one such occasion I had an excellent opportunity of examining one of them, and of measuring it. It was exactly six feet long, and in the largest part as thick as a man’s arm. Its scales were beautifully bright, like an armour of steel, the white throat and pale under tints completing the resemblance of polished metal. It was sleeping on a soft carpet of moss and grass which bordered our sandy path, and which showed the Racer to great advantage. My young companion, a Virginian boy to whom no sport came amiss, espied it with delight, and ran to pick up a stout stick. Knowing that it was harmless, and so excellent a mouser, I pleaded for its life; for in truth the nocturnal visitors in the shape of rats at our country dwelling were so noisy and numerous, that I regarded the Racer as a friend rather to be encouraged and domesticated than ruthlessly slain. Its couch now, in its spring green and freshness, was enamelled with the star-like partridge-berry (_Mitchella repens_), dotted here and there with twin coral berries that had lingered through the winter; the bright-leaved, white-flowered winter green (_Chimaphila maculata_); the Bluets (_Oldenlandia purpurea_), and other exquisite little flowers too lovely to be crushed and tainted; while a sunbeam glancing through the trees, and showing up the polished scales of the unconscious Racer, all seemed eloquent with mercy. It was the first time I had been close enough to touch so large a snake; and the whole scene is vividly before me now. Culprit though it might be, it was splendid and beautiful; and I entreated Johnny to wait and wake it up, so that we might watch its actions. ‘All very fine!’ cried the boy, not yet in his teens, ‘and fourteen more eggs gone from the hen-house last night!’ So he pounced upon a fallen bough, which he rapidly trimmed to suit his purpose, then with one sharp blow across the poor thing’s back, disabled it. I think the snake was quite killed by the blows the boy subsequently dealt, for I do not remember that it moved at all. ‘_Now_ you can look at it as much as you please,’ said the juvenile sportsman as he straightened the reptile out to its full length. Then I examined and measured it, and found it was more than two lengths of my long-handled parasol. Black creatures with two hands and two legs were far more likely to be the egg-stealers than that poor Racer far off in the woods.