The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-12-21
A PYTHON'S APPETITE.
.FEATHERS IND FURS CONSULTED At
HIS FOR1NIGHTLY MEALS.
"Time to Clear Ont When He Lifts Has
Head"-A Smake Problem.

OF huge extent sometimes with brazel
eyes
And hairy name terrifficl, though tt
thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call
The young July sun, shocked at the
blackness over Manchester, made haste
to mount above it,; and his beams, in
stantly climbing, topped the last range
of Clouds he looked down upon Belle
Vue and shOne ON the line of gaudy par
rots that were picketed outside of the
lion-houee. AS his glance touched these
children of a sun-bathed land it kind ed
more brightly, as though in glad recog-
milton while they in turn greeted him
with hoarse outburst of cries. They
shrugged and plumed themselves, call
ing out in gross mockery of mems
speech, and their dusty corner was
transformed by the wizards touch into
little vortex of life and gladdened with
color and noise. The grotesque fowls,
now become drunken with the sunshine.
beckoned and winked their-circular eyes
at me, calling out husky words of greet
ing; glarly would I have stayed and
banded words with them, but my steps
were bent towards a very different
place. Out of all this merry life /
plunged into the gloom of a museum,
where certain cold, clammy snakes We're
to be seen; the turnstile clicked behind
me, the screaming of the parrots died
from my hearing, and I felt as though
i had left life behind me.
For the condition of snake existence
ms it appears to the casual observer at
a place like Belle Vue is as far removed
from liveliness as it is from the stable
deso1ation of death. And consider, a
museum! / confess with shame that I
am averse to museums, whether public
or private. and that I have little taste
for that cherries kind of information
which can only be studied in death and
Identification The peering antiquary
may harvest whole crop of knowledge
from shards and flints, skulls and num-
mics; I have nothing but admiration
for the patience and learning with
which he is inspired; but for my part
I desire to be absent from those dismal
halls where the coughing caretaker plies
her bosom and the solitary visitors foot
fall echoes along the dreary aisle. L
believe I am not remarkable for this
dislike and 1t was a happy thought of
the Belle Vue authorities to house their
serpents in the museum. and to add the
obscure fascination of their low life to
the attraction of the antiquities; with
out it, although death makes a brave
show, I fear he had known but few
visitors here.
I went in, I say, with protests, and
sat along for a little while among the
slumbering reptiles. In two or three
cases were pile several feet of python
asleep; in others several feet of boa
constructor. asleep; here was a viper
there was a rattle-snake, asleep: the
Arnblyrhynchus Cristatus, in spite of
his name, slept not less profoundly,
than the simple alligator, and the Nj
lotto Monitor, as if to stultify his own
profession, snored aloud in luxurious
slumber. Flying foxes, that disdan the
brightness of day, carry their principles
of topsy- turveydom so far as to hang
by the feet (asleep) from the roof Of
their cage until nightfall they like the
rest of the company, seemed to mock
at my wakefulness. Wherever I looked
I could see evidence of nothing worthy
of the name of life Stuffed birds and
apes and tigers fixed me with the stare
of their glass eyes; upon one side of me
were cases of knives and implements
that We're discarded and obsolete thous-
ands Of years ago; upon another the
skull of a murderer grinned at me from
beneath it's gibbet-cap. AS a sane man
In madhouse begins to doubt his own
sanity, I began presently to wonder
whether were really alive or more ac-
curately to wonder whether there were
such a thing as Now. And, as I looked
at the snakes, the propriety of their
presence here became SUDDENLY plain to
me In the brisk open-air world the
dim flicker of their life would have
seemed like DEATH here, amid the dark
ness Of remote ages and the dust of
death, the pale flame was clearly visible
felt as though I had fallen through
story after story In the unfinished
structure of evolution, and now, after
having looked out from the upper win
dows, sat in the twilit basement of crea-
ton. For not only its place in the ma
tura1 world, but it's place in the very
earliest pages of recorded history, sur
rounds the serpent: with halo of inn
portance and with the dank atmosphere
of antiquity.
1t is but natural, and a supreme ex-
ample of common fallacy, that this
reptile which apparently does nothing |
but kill and eat and sleep, which has so
mean an intelligence Cor so gross a 4
palate) that it will eat a blanket in
mistake for sheep has from the oldest |
time had reputation for profound wis |
dow How far that wisdom depends on
the reptiles protracted sumbers; |
whether they grow wiseet who sleep thu
deepest, and, as the Eastern philosopF
ers teach, the highest state is achieved
by contemplation and the forsaking Of
works; or whether it is a sign of wisdom
to. sleep long. it would be hard to say;
but it ia a fact that the earliest re-
cords of the serpent show him to us as
both wise and sleeping. 1t was thus that
Satan wandering from Orontes to Oar
len. and from the Oh to the Indus came
upon that "fittest imp of fraud" which
he made his instrument; fast sleeping
he found him,
Not vet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet; but on the grassy herb,
Fearless, unfeared he slept in at his
mouth
The devil entered; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing, soon in