Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1910 — AN INTELLIGENT REPTILE. [ARTICLE]

AN INTELLIGENT REPTILE.

Do animals possess the power of logical Judgment, or, as we oftener say, reason? Naturalists — : and others —have long debated the question, and are still divided. A writer In Science, without committing himself on the point, tells what he saw on a country road in Georgia, and every reader will agree with him that it was remarkable. A commotion in the underbrush be* side the road attracted his attention. He investigated the cause, and saw a coachwhip snake about four feet long struggling with a lizard less than a foot long. They were not fighting; the snake was trying to eat the lizard. Occasionally the lizard would get *way, but the snake would at once give chase and recapture him. The snake invariably caught his prey by the body; he acted as if he knew that If he seized him by the tail the lizard would break off the tail and escape. Finally the lizard, escaping from the snake, darted up a tree; the snake followed. Here the four jointed legs of ths lizard gave him the advantage. After darting up the tree a short distance he paused and glanced backward. As often as the snake approached he would again dart forward, stop, and look backward; this happened several times. Then all of a sudden ths snake dropped to the ground. The lizard continued to gaze downward. Aboflt a foot from the tree on which the lizard was resting, head downward, there stood another tree. Spirally up this tree the snake climbed until it was a few inches above the level of the lizard# which was still gazing scrutlnlzingly downward. Quietly and quickly the snake extended the front of Its body, and with a sudden thrust of its head knocked the lizard to the ground, and before it had time to fecover from the unexpected bfciw the snake had dropped to the ground and recaptured it.