in its eagerness to locate and reach its retreat it darts about with a
nimbleness which almost eludes perception. These frantic quarterings, I
believe, led to the opinion that the snake is specially savage, whereas
it is merely exceptionally nervous and eager for the security of its
home. Twice recently when I have startled one in an enclosed pool it has
darted hither and thither in extreme excitement, even passing between my
legs without offering any violence or venom, and has eventually
disappeared in a miniature maelstrom of mud, as the reptile often does.
Like that lively fellow of whom Chaucer tells:


"He is heer and there,
He is so variant, he bideth nowhere."


Dickens had in his mind a similarly elusive character when he wrote: "You
look at him and there he is. You look again--and there he isn't."

This habit of furiously seeking a lair might pass casually but for an
astonishing detail, of which I was not well assured until it was
confirmed by repeated observations and by knowledge current among the
blacks. When the scared snake descends into its own well-defined well,
very little disturbance and no discoloration of the water takes place.
But when in desperation it disappears down a haphazard hole, a dense
little cloud of sediment is created. By careful watching I discovered
that the snake entered its home head first, but in any other hole the
tail had precedence, and that the frantic wriggling as it bored its way
down caused the obscuration. Moreover the snake--as subtle as any beast of
the field--first detects a befitting temporary retreat from apparent or
fancied danger, and then deliberately turns and enters tail first. Does