. Little folks in feathers and fur, and others in neither. s covered with palm leaves, takeep off sun and rain. In the same country the natives—when suffering from thirst—kill a land tortoise and drink the water which they find in hisreservoir. 68 LITTLE FOLKS A CURIOUS FELLOW, That Walks without Feet, Climbs without Hands, and Swims without Fins. To begin with, he walks on his ribs ; and I dare say you haveseen him do it dozens of times, though very likely you neverthought how he did it, for you call it crawling. The curious fellow is a Snake, and in his long slim body hehas—besides good stro
. Little folks in feathers and fur, and others in neither. s covered with palm leaves, takeep off sun and rain. In the same country the natives—when suffering from thirst—kill a land tortoise and drink the water which they find in hisreservoir. 68 LITTLE FOLKS A CURIOUS FELLOW, That Walks without Feet, Climbs without Hands, and Swims without Fins. To begin with, he walks on his ribs ; and I dare say you haveseen him do it dozens of times, though very likely you neverthought how he did it, for you call it crawling. The curious fellow is a Snake, and in his long slim body hehas—besides good strong ribs—powerful muscles, which bring theribs forward as if they were feet. And on he goes, fast enoughto get out of your way when you are after him with a stick. Why,his ribs, aided by his rough scales, are better than a dozen feet tohim. Indeed, I dont suppose he would know what to do with suchthings, if he had them. Then, as to his climbing, you have doubtless seen representa-tions of this fellow in the picture, climbing trees, by going around. the trunk in a sort of spiral. But thats not the way that thesesnakes out of the books climb. They press themselves firmly IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 69 against the tree, and go up by means of the same useful ribs andscales, the body of the snake being stiff as a stick meanwhile. Onecant really see how it is done, but done it is, and in just that way,too. In swimming, snakes will beat the fishes themselves. Theyget on in the water, either by an undulating movement of thewhole body, up and down, or by the same sort of motion from sideto side. Its way of getting on is not the most wonderful thing aboutthe snake. In whatever way you look at him he is a very interest-ing object to study. Look first at his bony frame-work. It ishardly anything but one long back-bone or vertebrae column. Buttry to turn and twist and wriggle your back around, as the snakedoes his, and you will find you cant do it. The reason he can, isthat the bones formin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishe, booksubjectzoology
