Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/388

374 The King Snake leaped forward, wound his body in a "loveknot" around Old Rattler's neck, took a "half-hitch" with his tail about the stomach, while the rest of his body lay in a curve like the letter S between the two knots. Then all he had to do was to stiffen up his muscles, and Old Rattler's backbone was snapped off at the neck.

All that remained to Glittershield was to swallow his enemy. First he rubbed his lips all over the body, from the head to the tail, till it was slippery with slime. Then he opened his mouth very wide, with a huge snaky yawn, and face to face he began on Old Rattler. The ugly head was hard to manage, but, after much straining, he clasped his jaws around it, and the venom trickled down his throat like some fiery sauce. Slowly head and neck and body disappeared, and the tail wriggled despairingly, for the tail of the snake folk can not die till sundown, and when it went at last the fifteen rattles and the button were keeping up an angry buzz. And all night long the King of Snakes, twice as big as he ought to be, lay gorged and motionless upon Old Rattler's rock.

And in the morning the little chipmunk ran out on a limb above him, pursed up his lips, and made all kinds of faces, as much as to say, "I did all this, and the whole world was watching while I did it."



VERY one knows that the Philippine archipelago, like other regions in its neighborhood, abounds in volcanoes, some of which are still active, while the majority are extinct. Some geologists have tried to distribute the Philippine volcanoes into two parallel belts or lines running in a general northwest and southeast direction, following the trend of the island group, and extending from the southern end of Mindanao to the northern part of Luzon—some sixteen degrees of latitude. Early, possibly prehistoric, volcanic activity in the group has left its imprint upon the native mythology, as was the case in the Mediterranean, and an explanation of some of the mythical stories is to be found in earth movements. The Spaniards have given accounts of many eruptions in the last three hundred years, which were remarkable either from the destruction they caused or the terror they inspired. Some of these accounts were written by the terrified eyewitnesses