`Of course not!' said his mother. `Why, child, serpents are
poisonous--it would be very dangerous.'
`Excuse me, my dear wife,' said I. `First of all, the boa is not
poisonous; and then, besides that, the flesh even of poisonous snakes
can be eaten without danger; as, for instance, the rattlesnake, from
which can be made a strong and nourishing soup, tasting very like good
chicken broth--of course, the cook must be told to throw away the head,
containing the deadly fangs.
`It is remarkable that pigs do not fear poisonous snakes, but can kill
and eat them without injury. An instance of this occurs to my memory. A
vessel on Lake Superior, in North America, was wrecked on a small
island abounding in rattlesnakes, and for that reason uninhabited.
`The vessel had a cargo of live pigs. The crew escaped to the mainland
in a boat, but the pigs had to be left for some time, till the owner
could return to fetch them, but with the small hope of finding many
left alive.
`To his surprise, the animals were not only alive, but remarkably fat
and flourishing, while not a single rattlesnake remained on the island.
The pigs had clearly eaten the serpents.'
`But might not some other cause have been assigned for their
disappearance?' asked Ernest. `Suppose, for example, that a great
flight of secretary birds had arrived, they might have cleared the
island of rattlesnakes.
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