Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/704

 684: BLACK SNAKE BLACKSTONE BLACK SNAKE (coluber constrictor ; C. las- canion, B. and G.), a very common snake, gen- erally distributed over North America. The head is oval and long ; the snout prolonged and rather pointed; the nostrils are lateral, very large near the snout, and open outward and a little backward ; the eyes are large and bright, the pupil black, and the iris very dark gray ; the body is long and slender, and covered with large smooth scales above, and with broad plates below ; the tail is also long and slender, and, according to Holbrook, may be used as a pre- hensile instrument; according to Dr. Storer, the abdominal plates are 184, and the caudal scales 85. The color above is a dark bluish black; below, slate-colored; chin and throat pure white, with occasionally a few black spots ; the margin of the jaws and snout yellow. The usual length is from 4 to 5 ft., of which the head is H inch, and the tail about 1 6 inches ; one was killed at Hing- ham, Mass., in 1842, 7 ft. long, which had en- folded and se- verely crushed in its coil a rab- bit, and which had in its body 15 quails' eggs unbroken, and some of them containing the young bird. It is very active, being from its rapid motions frequently call- ed " the ra- cer;" it climbs trees with easy facility, and is often found en- twined around bushes con- taining birds' nests. It frequents shady and shrubby places near ponds and streams, though it is very fond of basking in the sun. It feeds on mice, moles, frogs, toads, lizards, eggs, and young birds ; the larger specimens prey upon squirrels, chickens, and even young rabbits; it is very destructive to young birds, and a noted robber of nests. Its first specific name indi- cates that it possesses the power of destroying its prey by the constriction of its folds ; this power is known to many a schoolboy, around whose leg or arm it has coiled when the hu- man robber of birds' nests has come into con- tact with the serpent thief similarly inclined. The one killed at Hingham had a rabbit in its coil ; but it doubtless seizes its smaller and or- dinary prey with its mouth only. It is very daring, and during the breeding season will often attack persons passing at a distance; its bite is perfectly harmless. There is no good evidence that it has any power of fascination, Black Snake. as implied in the second specific name above given, its victims being taken by activity and direct assault. BLACKSTONE, a town of Worcester county, Mass., 36 m. S. W. of Boston and 13 m. N. W. of Providence, bordering on Rhode Island, and intersected by Blackstone river; pop. in 1870, 5,421. It contains a bank and several schools and churches, 4 cotton mills, with 42,720 spin- dles, producing 10,000,000 yards of cloth an- nually, and 5 woollen mills, with 45 sets of ma- chinery; annual value of product, $2,000,000. The Boston, Hartford, and Erie, and the Provi- dence and Worcester railroads pass through the town. BLACKSTONE, William, the first white inhabi- tant of Boston, died on Blackstone river, a few miles north of Providence, May 26, 1675. He is supposed to have been a graduate of Emanuel college, Cambridge, and to have been a clergy- man of the church of England. He settled upon the present site of Boston about 1623. In April, 1633, he removed to Rhode Island. BLACKSTONE, Sir William, an English lawyer, born in London, July 10, 1723, died there, Feb. 14, 1780. He was the posthumous son of a silk mercer, and lost his mother before he was 12 years old. His maternal uncle provided for his early education, and in his 7th year placed him at the Charterhouse school, where after the death of his mother he was admitted upon the foundation. Before he was 16 he entered Pembroke college, Oxford, and in 1741 he was entered at the Middle Temple, bidding adieu to poetry in "The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse." In 1743 he was elected a fellow of All Souls' college. Having been admitted to the bar in 1745, he spent the succeeding seven years in attendance upon the courts at West- minster, but failed to obtain a remunerative practice, and resolved to abandon the profes- sion. In 1749 he had been appointed recorder of Wallingford, in Berkshire, and he continued to discharge the duties of that office for 20 years. He was also steward of All Souls' college, and for six years assessor of the vice chancellor's court. In 1753 he opened a course of lectures at Oxford upon the English consti- tution and laws, which were the germ of his " Commentaries." For the purpose of estab- lishing a permanent course of a similar charac- ter, Mr. Viner, author of the " Abridgment of the Common Law," founded at Oxford a pro- fessorship of the common law, and Blackstone was elected the first incumbent of the chair in 1758. He held the professorship for seven years, winning a wide reputation, which en- abled him to return to the bar, where he im- mediately obtained a lucrative practice. In 1761 he was elected to parliament from Hin- don in Wiltshire, and the following year he was made king's counsel. He had previously declined the office of chief justice of the Irish common pleas, and in 1770 he also declined the office of solicitor general. Subsequently he was successively justice of the king's bench and