How easily a bird's tail, or that of any fowl, or in fact any part
of the plumage, comes out when the hold of its would-be capturer is
upon this alone; and how hard it yields in the dead bird! No doubt
there is relaxation in the former case. Nature says to the pursuer,
"Hold on," and to the pursued, "Let your tail go." What is the
tortuous, zigzag course of those slow-flying moths for but to make
it difficult for the birds to snap them up? The skunk is a slow,
witless creature, and the fox and lynx love its meat; yet it
carries a bloodless weapon that neither likes to face.

I recently heard of an ingenious method a certain other simple and
slow-going creature has of baffling its enemy. A friend of mine was
walking in the fields when he saw a commotion in the grass a few
yards off. Approaching the spot, he found a snake--the common
garter snake--trying to swallow a lizard. And how do you suppose
the lizard was defeating the benevolent designs of the snake? By
simply taking hold of its own tail and making itself into a hoop.
The snake went round and round, and could find neither beginning
nor end. Who was the old giant that found himself wrestling with
Time? This little snake had a tougher customer the other day in the
bit of eternity it was trying to swallow.

The snake itself has not the same wit, because I lately saw a black
snake in the woods trying to swallow the garter snake, and he had
made some headway, though the little snake was fighting every inch
of the ground, hooking his tail about sticks and bushes, and
pulling back with all his might, apparently not liking the look of
things down there at all. I thought it well to let him have a good
taste of his own doctrines, when I put my foot down against further