lake, we came to a deserted "gum road," from which the workers had departed years ago. Mr. Moseley remained at the landing to take a photograph, and I went slowly up the "gum road," hoping to shoot some squirrels. About a hundred yards up the road I came to the rotten old log hut of the "swampers," and there on a heap of bare ashes that still remained in the midst of the grass, lay in loose coils a long, dark snake, which I thought, from his similarity of color to that we had killed some days before, was a king-snake. I resolved to let the benevolent creature go free. He raised his head and looked at me, perhaps for a second, and then, with an easy and graceful slowness, glided into the canebrake. I passed up the road, and was joined by Mr. Moseley and Abeham. On our return I was telling them of the snake, and when we came to the place, all speaking loudly and laughing, I said: "That heap is where the snake lay," and, behold, there he was again, in the same place. He was not ten feet from where we stood. He had concealed his long body behind some leaves and earth, and had placed his head cunningly, as he thought, on the top of the ash heap, where it very closely resembled a dark creeper leaf. He was evidently prepared for a good look at the intruders. He made no motion
