Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-07-07

brush and withered leaves with the last autumn's red and brownish hues still upon them. On top of this brush pile is coiled euriously-eolored ser pent of the deadly eotalide family, like lash of reddish leather newly tanned, from head to tail. The back is crossed by bands of darker brown, which broaden as they extend downward on the sides. Just along the ground line is a row of spots yet darker than the bands, and regularly arranged so that opposite the extremity of every band there is q spot and one besides in each of the spaces between. Though the hue may vary, this pattern is constant in every snake of the kind. The head of the reptile is broad and flat, coming to an angle at the muzzle. Its shape reminds one of a barbless lancehead.
 This snake is the cousin of the dread ed West Indian Fer de Lance; the cop perhead or Fer de Lance of the north, potent in venom, quick to strike, and armed with fangs slightly curved and of needle-lil<e sharpness, so that they are far more apt to pierce vein than those of the other vipers. Were it not that the eopperhead is smaller than the rattlesnal1e, it would be much more dangerous, for it is in many districts of the eastern states, and even in some spots within few miles of New York, very commonly met with, while in some places the rattler has long ceased to exist.
 This leather-colored, brown banded snake, then, lying on that brush heap in the cage before me, is more than usu ally interesting. Just beneath the pile of brush the head und neck of another is sticking out, watching with catlike eyes for a frog, of which there are three in the cage. He felt the move ment in the twigs when I threw in the frogs One of them jumped past his place of concealment, and at once the watchful snake shot out his head to see what it was that had moved. Of the pair in the cage he is the male, smaller and lighter in color than his compan- ion. Motionless he stays, and it is hard to distinguish him from the dried-up leaves around him. In fact, his head of ycllowish brown might be mistaken easily for heart-shaped leaf, withered and dead, were it not for his light, fesh-colored, double-pointed tongue, which every second shoots out it's threadlilke tips, tremblingly inquiring for sound waves or savor in the sur rounding atmosphere.
 The frog, in one of its jumps, had rested for a moment on the bottom of the cage not far from where his nose now is. After bit he comes further out, bending his neck this way and that, examining the neighboring objects with the vibratory tips of his investigat- ing tongue. At last he touches the spot where the frog had momentarily rested. He pauses there and examines the place with quick-dipping tongue tips, which tell him in some mysterious way that his prey is surely in the vii cinity. Inch by inch he draws himself out of the bushes, evidently bent on further exploration. Were it daytime he would probably be sound asleep; but now, at midnight, he is all alert. Clearly, he is bent on hunting His more reddish hued mate is also gliding down from her coil on the brush heap above hlm. She, too, by scent or by that wonderful tongue, knows that frogs are near. She means to get her share. Slowly, ever so slowly, she de- scends from the brush pile on the other side from the male, and, often pausing, makes her cautious way through the withered leaves that strew the cage floor. One of the frogs is there, but she is ignorant of its nearness. It is only three inches from her nose, and yet she doesn't see it. because it is motionless as little stone sticking out of the leaf carpeted ground on the forest clad hillside. Hut the frog sees well, and clearly fears, with wholesome fear, the terrible enemy approaching. Its head. which till now has been erect, with bulging eyes gazing over the sur rounding leaves, is bent squat upon the bottom. It hardly seems to breathe, for it's instinct tells it that motion means death. Meantime the copper