Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/628

 their fellow-lodgers, they tarried so long before they broke their fast that their host apprehended a dietetic misunderstanding, and treated them to a nest with five young sparrows the next day. Three of these died before their snakeships condescended to partake; old sparrows, rats, and cockroaches were tried with no better success. The freckled ophidians still seemed to eat under protest, "yielding, but not consenting, to injustice," as Shere Ali said. But, though their proprietor's experiments failed to explain the mystery of rattlesnake-food, he believes that they solved a more interesting problem—the question in regard to the modus operandi of poisonous serpents in the capture of their prey.

During the first week of their confinement his rattlesnakes disdained to chase their game, and the stupidity of the bugs and young birds made it easy enough to collar them whenever they were wanted; but one morning the gamins of the neighborhood caught an old blackbird and sold it to the zoölogical druggist for two pieces of stick-candy. The blacksnakes were covered up with an old apron to prevent their interference, and the vivoras who had fasted for twenty-four hours, rather then eat cockroaches, got one more chance at a square meal. After fluttering around in an excited way for a while, the bird settled down in a corner, and the two snakes prepared for action. They lowered their heads, and, without moving the tail-end of their bodies, approached the bird by a gradual extension of their coils; but he was all suspicion, and recommenced his fluttering before their cat-like advance had brought them within range. The snakes separated then; the female rolled herself up in the blackbird's corner and her mate took post in the center of the room, but, after readjusting their coils, neither budged an inch; they bided their time.

Dashing his head against the windows seemed to tire the bird after a while. Presently he came down, but alighted in a rather inaccessible place, took wing again, and, alighting in his old corner, finally blundered into the water-pot. He hopped out with drenched wings and devoted a few seconds to the rearrangement of his toilet, unconscious or heedless of the proximity of the female partner of the hostile alliance. She watched all his movements, and her tail quivered in a curious way when she saw him poke his head under his right wing, the one turned toward the corner; she seemed to know that he would repeat the same manœuvre on the left-wing side. He did so, and she had him directly. Drawing herself up, she poised her neck like a dart, braced herself by contracting the rear coils, and let drive. A loud screech, a few feathers flying, and a terrified bird darting through the room like a blind chicken—cause and effect coinciding with shotlike suddenness.

Instead of following him she returned to her favorite nook, where she was soon after joined by her mate. The difficult part of the job was done. Three or four times the bird managed to take wing,