Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-02-26
The COraI-Snake.

NOTHING is needed in a tropic forest to
obtain hospitable admission to that great
theater in which is played sometimes
comedy and sometimes tragedy most
direful, that mighty playhouse, built, and
warmed, and painted with glory of
loneliness, by the imperial sun and TEEN
ing Mother Earth the theater in which
mans presence is an accident and an in
truSion, in which, if perceived, it over
clouds the mirth, and gives to the tragedy
a different climax. The mountains of
old stone," as these ancient sepulchers
are called by the natives, are always filed
with living things-rabbits, armadillos,
iguanas, snakes, and tiger cats. Even King
Jaguar himself does not disdain to abide
there, if he can find hole big enough to
stretch his huge carcass in. | had not
long to wait, therefore, before the curtain
rose on a scene in the great fOrest-drama,
which has been and is performing night
and dav from time to eternity.
''Tweet, tweety," chirped a "guatuso,"
or jungle-rabbit, poking his droll red
head from hole in the overthrown cairn.
The short fore-legs followed the head,
then the round, sleeky body, and the long,
kangaroo-like quarters Merrily he hop
ped about, hither and thither, now nib
bling the tendrils of a "vine," now
scratching at root with his long claws.
There is no funnier animal in the jungle
than a guatuso, unless it be a monkey or
raccoon, nor, indeed, is there any better
eating. | was already engaged in COM
putatiOn whether this big rabbit in hand
might not be safer speculation than a
deer in the savanna, when the little fellow
suddenly uttered a cry of alarm and
bounded hOmeward. Arrived at his hole,
however, he did not enter at once, but
raised himself on his hind-legs to recon
hotter the enemy. A dreadful enemy it
was.
Like long, polished necklace of jet
and coral and pearl in alternative beads,
the pursuer appeared, a living jewel that
sparkled and vanished among the stones
and f1eshy leaves. The head, enameled
in black and scarlet, was half-raised as he
slowly wound along, and the eyes, small
and rather dim, were fixed upon his vic
tim. Beautiful rather than terrible he
must have seemed to one who had never
seen his like before. Slender in shape,
glossy, and so richly yet tastefully color
ed, he reminded one of some antique or
ment that Cleopatra or Semiramis might
have worn round her dusky throat when
sitting in state upon her throne. But L
knew the death that lay beneath the
beauty; recognized at glance the ter
rible ''coral-snake." Now, l thought, is
the opportunity to watch this process of
fascination of which men tell, if, indeed,
it be real truth. Surely no snake living
has such occasion to use it as the clumsy
corale in chase of a healthy guatuso. For
all his grace and color this is the most
helpless of reptiles in taking prey, and
while watching the slow movements OF
the deadly snake, could not but wonder
what the cause of his inactivity might pc.
Put young corale of two feet long-he
becomes stumpy afterward-beside rat
tlesnake or "tuboba," his body seems as
1.-the and powerful as theirs; strip of his
jeweled skin, the muscles are as symmet,
rical. Yet the rattlesnake or the tuboba,
or any serpent that exists, is hundred
| times more active, and therefore more
| dangerous to other animals.
Persons who believe in spasmodical
providences will argue that the slowness
of the corale was specially apportioned to
| him to preserve men from his deadly
venom. Even supposing this reasonable,
! the desired effect must be due to some