The record-union., 1893-02-27

/ leaNlnS the tall DIVISION Wrlthlng about
almIessly. l have my own ideas concern
Ing these severed parts growing fresh
heads and tails when divided properly,
put Will not mention it here, from the fact
! that 1t would take up too much space to
place the hypothesis in reasonable light
before the reader.
There is little reptile belonging to
Madagascar known as the scimitar snake,
or, as the natives call it, Ell flGegO; that is,
the curling sword. Running along the
pack from head to tail is Il blackish,
| horny substance, which bends with the
conVolutions of the snakes body as read
| lly as would well-tempered steel spring;
| ana throughout its entire length it bears
an edge as hard as flint and as sharp as
razor. They are surprisingly agile, and
! thelr mode of attack is to spring in the
ar at their enemy, curling the back in
| ward so the sword cuts in deeper and
! deeper as they circle around like a flash
OF nght, keeping in the same track, until
Whatever they have falls apart like sepa-
raung piece OF wax with a thread. They
are not poisonous, but when one Of them
springs on man, which he likes very
well to Go, he will soon have leg off un-
less cracked on the pate. Some snake
specialists claim that the presence of this
reptile on the island is the reason there
are no large quadrupeds to be found there
at present, the curling sword III back
Z
they could be created.
quite different typo from the above is
the hammerhead of California These
brisk little fellows live in such inaccessi-
| pie places in the mountain parts that they
nave escaped observation altogether till
| within the past year. AS the popular
name implies, their ambition runs toward
hammering or clubbing instead of biting,
cutting or blowing. The hammerhead is
about twenty-four inches long, the first
three inches of the head and neck being
very heavy, composed of a sort OF
grlstIe. The muzzle is blunt and square,
and set against prOdigious muscles run
ming half the length Of the snake. They
are gregarious, aud when a lot of them
station themselves along the trail of some
wild animal, and he comes browsing
along unsuspectingly, the hammerheads
soon have him going, as Mr.. Corbett says.
W hen they are stationed along in line
waiting for victim, they appear like a lot
OF animated mallets. The head is given a
sort OF cockatoo appearance from tuft
OF hair which grows out of the back part
OF the head, and which can be raised or
lowered at will.
HOW THE HAMMERHEAD ACTS.
1t is claimed that the hammerhead can
strike with such power as to jerk the rest
OF his body off the ground, and that he Is
thus enabled to hammer an object MANY
= w y
Kill the hammerhead without danger is
to hold in front OF him Hat stone or piece
OF metal when he proceeds speedily to
knock his brains out.
Another serpent of singular character
istics is the splitting snake, Of South
America, which, If L remember rightly,
has recently been copyrighted by q. K.
Reilly. If this is so, Reilly had no right
to the snake, because it had been de-
scrlbed by Cummings, the South Amer
lean traveller and hunter, many years
ago. The splitting snake carries binding
poison in the hollows of his fangs, which
| he squirts in his enemy's eyes, if the lat
ter is too far away to be reached with the
usual strike. The best way to catch him
IS not, as Mr.. Reilly says, with a forked
stick, but with a large sponge or wad of
| hair, held out in front of him on a TWENTY
foot pole, as in the act of fishing. The
sponge or ball of wound hair should he
pushed close up in front of his face, and
when he strikes out to spit his fangs be-
come entangled in its meshes, when he
can be jerked off the ground like a fish
out of water. And, indeed, this manner
OF taking venomouS serpents is latterly
growing fashionable with snake fanciers
BY this means, If wished, the snake may
be whipped about in the air till his fangs
are Jerked of, when, of course, he is
rendered harmless, and can be pocketed
with the bare hands.
But the most wonderful snake in the
world, so Tor as can be learned is the
Waptl-wapti, or shooting snake, of the in
terror of Queensland, Australia. and
am almost positive he has never ap-
peared before in print. The wapti- wapti
is the blackest of all animals or mani
mate things on earth. 1t is so very black
that sort of compound double extract
of black ether seems to exude from it
and tlnge the ground in the immediate
n ni ifrN hnrhnnH tI,of :
seen it before and had suddenly come
upon 1t outstretched, one would take it
Tor bottOmleSS crack in the earth and
attempt to peer down it. This is pretty
good in itself, say the snake tanciers, but
there is something infinitely more inter
estlng, Tor this broad, writhing ribbon of
lnky blackness shoots bullets. The
snake is from four to five feet in length.
and as big around as your wrist, or twice
the size OF garden hose in its ordinary
state, but when it is loaded a portion Of
It's body is pulled out enormously.
THE SHOOTING SPECIES.
The wapti-wapti does it's shooting by
means of compressed air, and it sends
pellets with such accuracy and force that
unless the hunter of 1t has good shield
to protect him he had better stay in camD.
About five inches below its head the BODY
is formed from very elastic substance,
which is also about five inches in length
and this is capable of being expanded
with air at the snakes will. The rest of
the serpents body toward the tail is Of the
same material as the first five inches
from the head. From the compartment
of compressed air out toward the head
are two pasSageS-the throat proper and
just above it another through which the
pellets are forced. When I examined
the upper chamber of the first one l ever
killed half expected to find it rihed, on
account of the pellets coming with such
correctness and force, but in this | was
mistaken, finding it simply a smooth
bore, well fabricated by natural secre-
tions from the snake. The bullets thev
employ are about the size OF buckshot
and as hard as adamant. They manu-
tacture them themselves, seemingly out
of nothing, the same as a spider builds
webs. The only way to catch one alive
is to tease him behind a fiat rock or a
shield till he has wasted all his ammuni-
ton, and then bound onto him and put
clamps on his air chamber. The natives
there are intensely afraid of these black
shooters, and not a few of them bear
scars from being shot by them.
Taken all in all, the wapti- wapti stands
without a rival in the kingdom of snakes.
Jos. Donovan in Chicago Inter Ocean,
JAMES GORDON BENNETT.
some "reminiscences of the OId-Time