The next thing that attracts attention is their beauty, not so much the beauty of their colours as of their forms.  With few exceptions, snakes are the most graceful of living things.  Every position into which they put themselves, and every motion of their perfectly proportioned forms, is artistic.  The effect of this is enhanced by their gentleness and the softness of their movements.

But if you want to see them properly, you must be careful not to frighten them, for there is no creature more timid at heart than a snake.  One will sometimes let you get quite near to it and watch it, simply because it does not notice you, being rather deaf and very shortsighted, but when it does discover your presence, its one thought is to slip away quietly and hide itself.  It is on account of this extreme timidity that we see them so seldom.

Of the two hundred and thirty-seven kinds that I have referred to, some are, of course, very rare, or only found in particular parts of the country, but at least forty or fifty of them occur everywhere, and some are as plentiful as crows.  Yet they keep themselves out of our way so successfully that it is quite a rare event to meet with one.  Occasionally one finds its way into a house in quest of frogs, lizards, musk-rats, or some other of the numerous malefactors that use our dwellings as cities of refuge from the avenger, and it is discovered by the Hamal behind a cupboard, or under a carpet.  He does the one thing which it occurs to a native to do in any emergency—­viz. raises an alarm.  Then there is a general hubbub, servants rush together with the longest sticks they can find, the children are hurried away to a place of safety, the master appears on the scene, armed with his gun, and the

  Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie,

trying to slip away from the fuss which it dislikes so much, is headed, and blown, or battered, to pieces.  Then its head is pounded to a jelly, for the servants are agreed that, if this precaution is omitted, it will revive during the night and come and coil itself on the chest of its murderer.

Finally a council is held and a unanimous resolution recorded that deceased was a serpent of the deadliest kind.  This is not a lie, for they believe it; but in the great majority of cases it is an untruth.  Of our two hundred and thirty-seven kinds of snakes only forty-four are ranked by naturalists as venomous, and many of these are quite incapable of killing any animal as large as a man.  Others are very rare or local.  In short, we may reckon the poisonous snakes with which we have any practical concern at four kinds, and the chance of a snake found in the house belonging to one of these kinds stands at less than one in ten.