Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-07-07

head slowly approaches. Her tongue tips touch its slimy back, and at once she pauses, certain from that touch that her prey is before her. At the touch of her tongue the frog takes fright, but yet it somehow fears to jump. It simply raises its head. The movement is seen by the hungry cop perhead; she darts open-mouthed upon it before it has time to spring away, and holds it now kicking in her jaws. Meanwhile her mate follows up the trail of the second and secures it in like manner. They do not hold the frogs in their mouths till dead, but swallow them living. With large frogs their method is different. Not long ago 1 saw the same copperhead strike a frog too large to hold, and wait patiently for over twenty minutes till death made swallowing easier. l have seen the same snake attempt to catch and hold a struggling frog whose strength was so vigorous that he could not hold it still; his fangs gave way and broke from his jaws, so that the frog escaped, leaving the baffied copperhead so hurt or frightened that he never looked at it again; nor would he taste food for some weeks afterward, till new fangs had grown fast where the others were wrenched from. The frog which had escaped, however, had received it's death wound, and was found and swal- lowed by the female.
 Often when a copperhead fails to take frog at the first opportunity, its escape emboldens it to jump again and again, with startling rapidity, around the cage. On such occasions the other wise slow-making snakes will some times show an unwonted activity, and pursue with yigor the fleeing prey, al- ways securing it in the end. This live ly pursuit, however, is not the usual method of eopperheads. 'Tis probable that they only pursue the fleeing frogs thus at dusk of evening, or early morn ing, or on moonlight nights, when the frogs cannot see them clearly approach ing, for frogs are diurnal and copper heads nocturnal in their habits Hence it is easy for the copperhead, when nighttime approaches, to glide out from his darksome retreat in the rocks or the cavernous interior of a decaying tree, and come upon the sleeping wood frogs euddled away among the dampened leaves; for they, in the darkness, can never know of the danger which glides through the shadows of the woodland.
 Itwould be mistake to suppose that the eopperhead lives only on frogs. l once found in the stomach of a dead one the remains of a short-tailed field mouse Still, in captivity, have found them refuse such diet. Toads, they, in common with blaclxsnakesSand others, abhor. Fishes they will not eat, nor will they swallow other snakes, which the harmless b1acl1snake does with avidity A week after their catching 1 tried them with common house mice, of which the male ate only seven in the course of three weeks The female re- fused everything but water. From Oe- tober to March, although kept in warm room, where other snakes ate freely, neither could be induced to take food of any kind. My joy may be im- agined when found them most raven ously feeding on frogs.
 Of all the snake hunts in which I have been engaged, the capture of this pair of eopperheads was probably the most exciting and dangerous. Having been unsuccessful in my search in other localities. 1 at last determined to try my luck in Cold Spring g-on-the-Hudson, for l had heard that there they were very abundant. One companion from New York accompanied me on my hunt.
 About q mile from Cold Spring is the Emerson house, at Nelsonville, and be- yond this for another mile the road is lined with woods, until it is broken again by a low-lying field covered on the upper parts with grass and on the low-lying places by rank weeds and swamp grass as high as ones waist. Through the middle of this field a lazy stream meanders in muddy course, closely shaded on both sides by thick cts of leafy alders. For manifest req