Lesson Li

The Water Snake

Leading thought—The water snake haunts the banks of streams because its food consists of creatures that live in and about water.

Method—If water snakes are found in the locality, encourage the boys to capture one without harming it, and bring it to school for observation. However, as the water snake is very local in its habits, and haunts the same place year after year, it will be better nature-study to get the children to observe it in its native surroundings.

Observations—1. Where is the water snake found? How large is the largest one you ever saw?

2. Why does the water snake live near water? What is its food? How does it catch its prey?

3. Describe how the water snake swims. How far does its head project above the water when swimming? How long can it stay completely beneath the water?

4. Describe the markings and colors of the water snake. How do these colors protect it from observation? How do the young look?

5. Does each water snake have a favorite place for sunning itself?

6. Where do the water snakes spend the winter?

May 12, 1858.

Found a large water adder by the edge of Farmer’s large mudhole, which abounds with tadpoles and frogs, on which it was probably feeding. It was sunning on the bank and would face me and dart its head toward me when I tried to drive it from the water. It is barred above, but indistinctly when out of the water, so that it appears almost uniformly dark brown, but in the water, broad, reddish brown bars are seen, very distinctly alternating with very dark-brown ones. The head was very flat and suddenly broader than the neck behind. Beneath, it was whitish and reddish flesh-color. It was about two inches in diameter at the thickest part. The inside of its mouth and throat was pink. They are the biggest and most formidable-looking snakes that we have. It was awful to see it wind along the bottom of the ditch at last, raising wreaths of mud amid the tadpoles, to which it must be a very sea-serpent. I afterward saw another, running under Sam Barrett’s grist-mill, the same afternoon. He said that he saw a water-snake, which he distinguished from a black snake, in an apple tree near by, last year, with a young robin in its mouth, having taken it from the nest. There was a cleft or fork in the tree which enabled it to ascend.

—Thoreau’s Journal.