It Was About Three Feet Long, Very Thick In
Proportion, And With Broad Head And Blunt Tail.
It came forth hissing
and striking blindly right and left when the dogs pulled the opossums
out, but was killed with a blow of the spade without injuring the
dogs.
This was the first _serpent with a cross_ I had seen, and the sight of
the thick blunt body of a greenish-grey colour blotched with dull
black, and the broad flat head with its stony-white lidless eyes, gave
me a thrill of horror. In after years I became familiar with it and
could even venture to pick it up without harm to myself, just as now
in England I pick up the less dangerous adder when I come upon one.
The wonder to us was that this extremely irascible and venomous
serpent should be living in a nest with a large family of opossums,
for it must be borne in mind that the opossum is a rapacious and an
exceedingly savage-tempered beast.
This then was the world in which I moved and had my being, within the
limits of the old rat-haunted foss among the enchanted trees. But it
was not the trees only that made it so fascinating, it had open spaces
and other forms of vegetation which were exceedingly attractive too.
There was a field of alfalfa about half an acre in size, which
flowered three times a year, and during the flowering time it drew the
butterflies from all the surrounding plain with its luscious bean-like
fragrance, until the field was full of them, red, black, yellow, and
white butterflies, fluttering in flocks round every blue spike.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 59 of 355
Words from 16711 to 16992
of 98444
