The Press., 1897-08-12
SNAKES OF BOYHOOD.
SOME EXTINCT REPTILlANs THAT
 HAD MARVELLOUS ATTRIBUTES.

The Terrible Blue Racer and the Thou
 sands of Victims He Didn't Get-The Hoop Snake That All Knew of, but Few
 Ever Saw-Peculiarities of Glass Snakes
 The blue racer was an Ophidian cal culated to cause the hair of the small boy to stand on end like the quil1s of the fretful porcupine. Nothing could exceed the fendish malignity of this snake, whose powers of locomotion were in- credibly swift and whose appetite for boy was forever on edge. And it was only by relieving himself of all impedi- menta, such as the bucket containing his small store of berries or his fishing tackle and can of bait, that boy was able to avoid capture. It was the cur rent belief that when the blue racer came up with his prey he swiftly in- folded the unlucky wight in his deadly coils, crushed the life out of him and then devoured him at his leisure. So far az history goes and the mortuary records show no boy was ever cut off in the bloom of his youth by blue racer, but disasters of this kind were only avoided by the remarkable feetness of foot dis played on such occasions.
 His terror gave him supernatural strength and added wings to his feet, and the blue racer was incontinently left in the shade. The blue racer, ao cording to cloud of youthful witnesses who have testified thereto, was a snake ranging from II to 16 feet long, the av- craze length being about 15 feet Its aspect was threatening in the extreme, and its eyes gleamed with Q baleful and hungry light As it reared its ugly head four or five feet above the surface in search of the trembling youngsters his underside was seen to be of bright blue color. and from this fact and his swift movements he received his apt and dis tinguishing name. Blue racers are as scarce as hens teeth now.
 But the most deadly, the most grew some and the most appalling snake known to boyhood was the fearful hoop snake, now happily extinct. l This scourge of the forest was the bete noire of the urchin, who was continual ! Iy ill mortal terror of encountering it as he wandered through the pleasant woods
 
 stream. The hoop snake roamed the ! darksome shades of the forest like an | averaging Nemesis, and, liko the blue racer, was always on the lookout for boys. The hoop snake differed uniquely from all other ophidia. When in mo- tion, it was the habit of this snake to insert the end of it's tail in it's mouth, and, bending it's body into perfect cir cle, it would roll silently and with in- credible swiftness through the woods. The tail terminated ill horny spike, harder than steel, i'll which was conceal ed a sting of the most venomous de- scription, and woe betide the object that came within striking distance of this fearful weapon. The virus i'll the 1 tail was far more toxic than the venom of the rattlesnake CT the tooth of the I copperhead and was synonymous with l instant death.
 Fortunately no boy was ever stung ! by one of these snakes. His caution, his I prudence and proyerbiAl good luck al- | ways enabled him to circumvent the | machinations of the enemy, but it re- I quired ceaseless vigilance on his part. Indeed, but few boys ever saw one of these reptiles, although we were well aware of their existence. But at rare intervals some youth favored with ex- ceptional eyesight and vivid imagina- tion would get a glimpse of hoop snake rolling it's way along 0 distant path.
 Another curious snake that used to interest youthful students of herpetol- 1 ogy was tho glass snake. As far as its habits were known, the glass snake seemed to exist for the solo purpose of affording fun for the boys, who, when they encountered one of them, hit it across the back with a stick, whereup- on his snakeship broke into a thousand pieces, more or less, according to the mathematical proficiency of the boy, ! and his brittle anatomy flew in all di- rections. Yet this singular proceeding, while it interested the youthful expert mentors greatly, never discommoded the snake, OF only temporarily, for as soon as left to itself the parts all united and the snake was whole as before. This invariably happened, but although boys have watched for hours to see the mysterious process the reptile never "got together" until they had departed. Glass snakes are not nearly so common nows nor are they So brittle as they used to be.
 One fact ip serpent history, however, remains the same ill spite of the diota of scientists, as any boy of today can tell. The tail of snake will wiggle after it I is killed until the sun gees down. There isn't a boy in the whole country but I knows this to be a rock ribbed fact in natural history Learned men tell us that this notion, as they please to call it, is relic of far distant time when our ancestors worshiped the sun, which at one time was depicted with serpent attributes. Chicago Tribune.