Gordon Grice's Blog, page 32

Feeding the Albino Bullsnake

 Photography by Dee Puett

Identify These Feces

Bob Haynie took this photo in Washington State and is wondering what animal might have left it. He notes that the fibrous material seems to be hair. He adds: "I usually put a dollar bill down for scale, but my photography has improved so now I am using a 20."



Bob and I agree on a theory, but I thought I'd withhold it for a day or two and see what other people think. 

Life Before Earth

Interesting theory uses math to suggest that life needed ten billion years to reach its current level of complexity--which means it started long before the earth formed. 



Could Life Be Older Than Earth Itself? - Yahoo! News: "Contamination with bacterial spores from space appears the most plausible hypothesis that explains the early appearance of life on Earth."

Bitten by a Beaked Snake

Nevit Dilmen/Creative Commons



by guest writer James Smith






My last name—Smith—is, according to at least one study, the
most common in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia (and the
fifth most common in Ireland, apparently, even if you don’t count MacGowan or
MacGovan, the Gaelic equivalent.) No doubt this was due to the fact that smiths
were in demand in early communities, and to be known as a smith was a mark of
honor—they made weapons, jewelry, cookware, horse tack, all those things you
couldn’t live without in the old days. And just as Smith was popular in
English-speaking lands, so its German analogue, Schmidt, caught on like
wildfire in German-speaking countries.




In other words, Dr. Karl P. Schmidt, may he rest in peace,
and yours truly are connected at least in so far as we share, to all intents
and purposes, a surname. That proved a trifle disconcerting to me one summer
evening about ten years ago, for, during the course of maintaining my reptile
collection, I found myself in eerily similar circumstances to those which
brought the good doctor’s career to an unpleasant and untimely halt in the year
1957.




Look through a book of snakes and you’ll find some with
weird names—yamakagashi, mamba, cribo, mussurana, daboia. But my favorite is
the boomslang. This word is taken from the Afrikaans for “tree snake” and
that’s just what the boomslang is, a medium-sized arboreal snake that feeds on
small mammals, lizards and birds in the savanna woodlands of its native Africa.
Boomslangs are rear-fanged snakes, snakes with enlarged, grooved rear teeth instead
of the needle-like front fangs of vipers and cobras. (Purists dislike
“rear-fanged” as a nonscientific, artificial catch-all, but since it provides a
ready illustration and when you say “opistoglyphous” people tend to say
“Gesundheit!” by way of reply, rear-fanged it is.) To deliver a significant
dose of venom, most rear-fangs have to really clamp on and work their jaws,
almost chewing, to ensure the toxin runs down the grooves into the wound.




Due to this somewhat crude means of venom delivery, the majority
of rear-fanged snakes are basically harmless. Many are small reptiles about the
size of the garter snakes commonly found throughout North America, and their
mouths too small to bring their awkwardly-placed fangs into play. Even with
some of the big ones, such as the beautiful mangrove snake from Thailand and
Indonesia, their venom is generally negligible with regard to its effect on
anything much larger than the animals they feed on—lizards, birds, mice, other
snakes—and sometimes not especially effective even on these, stunning or
sedating rather than killing outright.




To be sure, even these snakes should be treated with utmost
care and respect, since much depends on the chemistry of the person bitten, and
it’s a poor way to find out that you’re hypersensitive to this or that protein
or enzyme. But in general, rear-fanged snakes are not in a league with their
front-fanged counterparts—atractaspids, elapids and viperids—either in delivery
or weapons-grade venom.




The boomslang is a very unpleasant exception.




In 1957, Karl P. Schmidt, curator of reptiles at the Field
Museum in Chicago, was bitten by a juvenile boomslang he was identifying for a
colleague and succumbed to internal bleeding twenty-eight hours later. Death by
boomslang bite, incidentally, is a horrible way to die: the haemotoxic
component acts as an anticoagulant, and in acute cases the victim may bleed
from every bodily orifice—mouth, nose, eyes, anus and privates.




Nobody had taken the boomslang seriously because of its
allegedly low toxicity and inefficient venom delivery, and so no antivenin
existed for its bite, and it would be years in the making. Thankfully, in the
wild boomslangs are shy and hardly ever bite humans, though it has happened
since Dr. Schmidt’s death, usually when someone is climbing a tree and not
watching where they put their hands.  




In 1975, the African twig snake, another supposedly harmless
rear-fang, bit Robert Mertens, a German herpetologist, and killed him. Now at
least two rear-fanged snakes were proven menaces, albeit not in the wild as
much as in captivity when being handled or examined. (Mertens was hand-feeding
his twig snake when the bite took place.)




A Japanese snake called the yamakagashi, a distant cousin of
the garter snakes and only about three or four feet long, killed a young man in
the early 1980’s. While I can’t substantiate any other fatalities, numerous
other people bitten by this snake report fever, nausea and severe pain in the
joints near the bitten area. It seems prudent, then, to not dismiss the young
man’s death as a fluke and to regard the yamakagashi with the respect due a
potentially deadly snake.




Current studies suggest that quite a few snakes commonly
thought of as nonvenomous, like the garter snakes, actually have proteins in
their saliva, which aid in sedating or stunning struggling prey such as frogs
and lizards. Technically, one could argue that this means they bear at least
the evolutionary beginnings of venom. However, these snakes really pose no
threat to human safety. Indeed, most rear-fangs don’t even legally qualify as
venomous snakes—that is, they are not prohibited in areas where the ownership
of truly venomous ones, such as vipers and cobras, is restricted to licensed
owners. This is presumably because their venom is not of medical significance.
(The hognose, for instance, is a popular pet snake that happens to be
rear-fanged.)




I had worked with hognoses, and kept golden tree snakes (an
Asian rear-fang that belongs to the group known as “flying snakes” due to its
ability to flatten out and parasail, as it were, from one perch to another) but
my Karl Schmidt moment arose at the fangs of a rufous beaked snake, acquired in
the summer of 2002.




Rufous beaked snakes are long, slim brownish snakes with a
black mask on their eyes, almost like a raccoon’s. Very alert and responsive
animals (for snakes), they are almost birdlike in the way they move their heads
while taking notice of everything outside their cages, and perform a curious
self-anointing ritual involving nasal secretions—known as “scale polishing” and
still poorly understood, perhaps an adaptation designed to guard against losing
moisture—that is downright comical to watch. Found in semi-arid to almost
desert regions of southern Africa, they make engaging captives, and are extremely
reluctant to bite in self-defense.




So how, then, did I get bitten?




I violated a fundamental snake-keeper’s rule: don’t
interfere with a snake when he’s having dinner.




I was feeding my specimen a frozen-thawed mouse. I usually
do not offer live prey due to the risk of a mouse or rat getting off one last
lucky shot with those long teeth, so frozen is easier on the snake, more
convenient for me, and—while the rodent is still dead (carbon dioxide gas)—it
is spared the sensation of being stalked by a predator. The snake appeared not
to notice the inert mouse. I went to reach for my feeding tongs, which normally
hung on a peg beside this snake’s terrarium.




They weren’t there.




I was impatient and didn’t want to bother looking around.
Reaching into the cage with fingers that smelled of mouse and were moving, I
went to jiggle the dead rodent with my bare hand. There was a sudden flash of
brown and the snake clamped his jaws on my right ring finger at the second
knuckle. Because beaked snakes rely primarily on constriction to kill and their
bite as more or less of a sedative, a secondary measure, he threw a coil around
my wrist and anchored himself.




Now, a few things are necessary to explain here. Like the
boomslang, the beaked snake can open its jaws quite wide—perhaps not as far as
the one hundred seventy-degree gape of the boomslang, but wide enough. Due to
its short head, those rear fangs are rear in name only: while they are
certainly not at the front of the mouth, like those of a viper or cobra, and
they are the crude, grooved back teeth, not the precision hypodermics of the
front-fanged species, they are decent-sized and forward-directed.




And “not dangerous” does not equate to “not painful.” A
single white-faced hornet is not dangerous, unless you are one of those
unfortunate folks who suffer from allergies to their stings—but anyone who has
ever experienced a white-face on the attack, where the insect darts like a
guided missile to turn at impact and strike sting-first—and how she can
sting!—will tell you that the pain inflicted is excruciating.




Almost as soon as the snake’s jaws closed, I became aware of
a stabbing, burning pain in my finger. I’ve been bitten by tarantulas and wolf
spiders, stung by hornets, bees and harvester ants, jabbed by the spines of
catfish—the best comparison I could make was to a pair of acid-coated thorns
being shoved into my flesh.




At this point the snake became aware that he’d grabbed me
instead of a mouse, and that I was too big to swallow. Unsettled by the whole
thing, he released his hold and slipped into his cave at the end of the tank,
to the accompaniment of some very blasphemous language.




My finger was burning, reddening, and starting to swell. I
sat down to take stock of the situation. On the one hand, if beaked snakes
couldn’t even kill a mouse with their bite, and required constriction to kill
their prey, I was probably safe.




On the other hand, poisons are funny—the toxic agent in the
beaked snake’s bite, rufoxin, certainly did incapacitate prey, I had seen that with
my own eyes before getting this one conditioned to take dead mice. (I was later
to learn that it induces hypotension and circulatory shock, in fact, doubtless
rendering the mouse easier to constrict.)




And of course, some irrational part of my mind gibbered, the
boomslang had been thought harmless…until Dr. Schmidt went to that giant
reptile house in the sky.




Realistically, I was pretty much screwed if I turned out to
be the first case of serious beaked snake envenomation. Since they were
theoretically harmless, there would have been no serum to treat the bite and
you can’t, for example, inject someone with rattlesnake antivenin and hope for
the best (you can kill someone by using the wrong antivenin—and some people
cannot process it anyway, so doctors who truly know snakebite tend to see it as
one option among others, although if it can be administered safely, a good one.)
When it became apparent that my gums had not started to bleed after twenty
minutes, and a quick check of my jockeys established that I was not leaking
blood anywhere else, I decided I wasn’t going to die and turned in for the
night, leaving the thawed mouse in the terrarium.




It was gone in the morning, and since I’m writing this, you
know I obviously wasn’t. Apart from the spot where the snake’s teeth had
actually gone in, I was perfectly normal and had no complaints. My finger did
remain stiff, sore and difficult to fully straighten for a couple of months.
Eventually it returned to normal, however.




From my later studies on the topic, I appear to simply have
an unusual degree of sensitivity to rufoxin, as other people who have been
bitten report no pain or swelling, not even locally. I still maintain my rufous
beaked snakes, and due to their extreme reluctance to bite, continue to handle
them when lecturing with them, or moving them from cage to cage. But when
feeding time rolls around, I accord them the respect due a western diamondback
in shedding time, and don’t try to rush them over their dinners.

Komodo Dragon Bites Woman

Aaron Logan/Creative Commons



A Komodo dragon inflicted minor injuries on a woman. Despite the goofy headline, it appears the assistance of neighbors may have been the real reason this woman survived. The dragons occasionally prey on children and isolated people. 





Komodo dragon attack repelled by woman with a broom - CSMonitor.com: 



"Haifha, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, hit the giant lizard's nose several times with a broom until it left go of her hand. Her neighbors heard her scream and drove the animal away. It took 20 stiches to repair Haifa's hand."

Mongolian Dogs

After the first World War, scientist and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews spent a year in the wilds of Mongolia. Here's his account of the dogs of the region.

Every Mongol knows that his coffin will be the stomachs of dogs, wolves, or birds. Indeed, the Chinese name for the raven is the "Mongol's coffin." The first day we camped in Urga, my wife and Mrs. MacCallie were walking beside the river. Only a short distance from our tent they discovered a dead Mongol who had just been dragged out of the city. A pack of dogs were in the midst of their feast and the sight was most unpleasant.

The dogs of Mongolia are savage almost beyond belief. They are huge black fellows like the Tibetan mastiff, and their diet of dead human flesh seems to have given them a contempt for living men. Every Mongol family has one or more, and it is exceedingly dangerous for a man to approach a yurt or caravan unless he is on horseback or has a pistol ready. In Urga itself you will probably be attacked if you walk unarmed through the meat market at night. 

Although the dogs live to a large extent upon human remains, they are also fed by the lamas. Every day about four o'clock in the afternoon you can see a cart being driven through the main street, followed by scores of yelping dogs. On it are two or more dirty lamas with a great barrel from which they ladle out refuse for the dogs, for according to their religious beliefs they accumulate great merit for themselves if they prolong the life of anything, be it bird, beast, or insect.

Fruit Bat Wakes Up

 Photography by Dee Puett

Thoreau's Owls

A Wildlife Classic by Henry David Thoreau 


When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night-walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then—that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and—bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods.


I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human being—some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness—I find myself beginning with the letters gl when I try to imitate it—expressive of a mind which has reached the gelatinous, mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by distance—Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter.


I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there.

Bison (and Some Others Who Sneaked into the Shot)

Photography by Dee Puett

Cat Lit

from The Story of my Cats




by JH Fabre 

translated by Alexander Teixeira De Mattos




One day—it was at Avignon—there appeared upon the
garden-wall a wretched-looking Cat, with matted coat and protruding ribs, so
thin that his back was a mere jagged ridge. He was mewing with hunger. My
children, at that time very young, took pity on his misery. Bread soaked in
milk was offered him at the end of a reed. He took it. And the mouthfuls
succeeded one another to such good purpose that he was sated and went off,
heedless of the 'Puss! Puss!' of his compassionate friends. Hunger returned;
and the starveling reappeared in his wall-top refectory. He received the same
fare of bread soaked in milk, the same soft words. He allowed himself to be
tempted. He came down from the wall. The children were able to stroke his back.
Goodness, how thin he was!




It was the great topic of conversation. We discussed it at
table: we would tame the vagabond, we would keep him, we would make him a bed
of hay. It was a most important matter: I can see to this day, I shall always
see the council of rattleheads deliberating on the Cat's fate. They were not
satisfied until the savage animal remained. Soon he grew into a magnificent
Tom. His large round head, his muscular legs, his reddish fur, flecked with
darker patches, reminded one of a little jaguar. He was christened Ginger
because of his tawny hue. A mate joined him later, picked up in almost similar
circumstances. Such was the origin of my series of Gingers, which I have
retained for little short of twenty years through the vicissitudes of my
various removals.




The first of these removals took place in 1870. A little
earlier, a minister who has left a lasting memory in the University, that fine
man, Victor Duruy, had instituted classes for the secondary education of girls.
This was the beginning, as far as was then possible, of the burning question of
to-day. I very gladly lent my humble aid to this labour of light. I was put to
teach physical and natural science. I had faith and was not sparing of work,
with the result that I rarely faced a more attentive or interested audience.
The days on which the lessons fell were red-letter days, especially when the
lesson was botany and the table disappeared from view under the treasures of
the neighbouring conservatories.




That was going too far. In fact, you can see how heinous my
crime was: I taught those young persons what air and water are; whence the
lightning comes and the thunder; by what device our thoughts are transmitted
across the seas and continents by means of a metal wire; why fire burns and why
we breathe; how a seed puts forth shoots and how a flower blossoms: all
eminently hateful things in the eyes of some people, whose feeble eyes are
dazzled by the light of day.




The little lamp must be put out as quickly as possible and
measures taken to get rid of the officious person who strove to keep it alight.
The scheme was darkly plotted with the old maids who owned my house and who saw
the abomination of desolation in these new educational methods. I had no
written agreement to protect me. The bailiff appeared with a notice on stamped
paper. It baldly informed that I must move out within four weeks from date,
failing which the law would turn my goods and chattels into the street. I had
hurriedly to provide myself with a dwelling. The first house which we found
happened to be at Orange. Thus was my exodus from Avignon effected.




We were somewhat anxious about the moving of the Cats. We
were all of us attached to them and should have thought it nothing short of
criminal to abandon the poor creatures, whom we had so often petted, to distress
and probably to thoughtless persecution. The shes and the kittens would travel
without any trouble: all you have to do is to put them in a basket; they will
keep quiet on the journey. But the old Tom-cats were a serious problem. I had
two: the head of the family, the patriarch; and one of his descendants, quite
as strong as himself. We decided to take the grandsire, if he consented to
come, and to leave the grandson behind, after finding him a home.




My friend Dr. Loriol offered to take charge of the forsaken
one. The animal was carried to him at nightfall in a closed hamper. Hardly were
we seated at the evening-meal, talking of the good fortune of our Tom-cat, when
we saw a dripping mass jump through the window. The shapeless bundle came and
rubbed itself against our legs, purring with happiness. It was the Cat.




I learnt his story next day. On arriving at Dr. Loriol's, he
was locked up in a bedroom. The moment he saw himself a prisoner in the
unfamiliar room, he began to jump about wildly on the furniture, against the
window-panes, among the ornaments on the mantelpiece, threatening to make short
work of everything. Mme. Loriol was frightened by the little lunatic; she
hastened to open the window; and the Cat leapt out among the passers-by. A few
minutes later, he was back at home. And it was no easy matter: he had to cross
the town almost from end to end; he had to make his way through a long
labyrinth of crowded streets, amid a thousand dangers, including first boys and
next dogs; lastly—and this perhaps was an even more serious obstacle—he had to
pass over the Sorgue, a river running through Avignon. There were bridges at
hand, many, in fact; but the animal, taking the shortest cut, had used none of
them, bravely jumping into the water, as its streaming fur showed. I had pity
on the poor Cat, so faithful to his home. We agreed to do our utmost to take
him with us. We were spared the worry: a few days later, he was found lying
stiff and stark under a shrub in the garden. The plucky animal had fallen a victim
to some stupid act of spite. Some one had poisoned him for me. Who? It is not
likely that it was a friend!




There remained the old Cat. He was not indoors when we
started; he was prowling round the hay-lofts of the neighbourhood. The carrier
was promised an extra ten francs if he brought the Cat to Orange with one of
the loads which he had still to convey. On his last journey he brought him
stowed away under the driver's seat. I scarcely knew my old Tom when we opened
the moving prison in which he had been confined since the day before. He came
out looking a most alarming beast, scratching and spitting, with bristling
hair, bloodshot eyes, lips white with foam. I thought him mad and watched him
closely for a time. I was wrong: it was merely the fright of a bewildered
animal. Had there been trouble with the carrier when he was caught? Did he have
a bad time on the journey? History is silent on both points. What I do know is
that the very nature of the Cat seemed changed: there was no more friendly
purring, no more rubbing against our legs; nothing but a wild expression and
the deepest gloom. Kind treatment could not soothe him. For a few weeks longer,
he dragged his wretched existence from corner to corner; then, one day, I found
him lying dead in the ashes on the hearth. Grief, with the help of old age, had
killed him. Would he have gone back to Avignon, had he had the strength? I
would not venture to affirm it. But, at least, I think it very remarkable that
an animal should let itself die of home-sickness because the infirmities of age
prevent it from returning to its old haunts.




What the patriarch could not attempt, we shall see another
do, over a much shorter distance, I admit. A fresh move is resolved upon, that
I may have, at length, the peace and quiet essential to my work. This time, I
hope that it will be the last. I leave Orange for Serignan.




The family of Gingers has been renewed: the old ones have
passed away, new ones have come, including a full-grown Tom, worthy in all
respects of his ancestors. He alone will give us some difficulty; the others,
the babies and the mothers, can be removed without trouble. We put them into
baskets. The Tom has one to himself, so that the peace may be kept. The journey
is made by carriage, in company with my family. Nothing striking happens before
our arrival. Released from their hampers, the females inspect the new home,
explore the rooms one by one; with their pink noses they recognize the
furniture: they find their own seats, their own tables, their own arm-chairs; but
the surroundings are different. They give little surprised miaows and
questioning glances. A few caresses and a saucer of milk allay all their
apprehensions; and, by the next day, the mother Cats are acclimatised.




It is a different matter with the Tom. We house him in the
attics, where he will find ample room for his capers; we keep him company, to
relieve the weariness of captivity; we take him a double portion of plates to
lick; from time to time, we place him in touch with some of his family, to show
him that he is not alone in the house; we pay him a host of attentions, in the
hope of making him forget Orange. He appears, in fact, to forget it: he is
gentle under the hand that pets him, he comes when called, purrs, arches his
back. It is well: a week of seclusion and kindly treatment have banished all
notions of returning. Let us give him his liberty. He goes down to the kitchen,
stands by the table like the others, goes out into the garden, under the
watchful eye of Aglae, who does not lose sight of him; he prowls all around
with the most innocent air. He comes back. Victory! The Tom-cat will not run
away.




Next morning:




'Puss! Puss!'




Not a sign of him! We hunt, we call. Nothing. Oh, the
hypocrite, the hypocrite! How he has tricked us! He has gone, he is at Orange.
None of those about me can believe in this venturesome pilgrimage. I declare
that the deserter is at this moment at Orange mewing outside the empty house.




Aglae and Claire went to Orange. They found the Cat, as I
said they would, and brought him back in a hamper. His paws and belly were
covered with red clay; and yet the weather was dry, there was no mud. The Cat,
therefore, must have got wet crossing the Aygues torrent; and the moist fur had
kept the red earth of the fields through which he passed. The distance from
Serignan to Orange, in a straight line, is four and a half miles. There are two
bridges over the Aygues, one above and one below that line, some distance away.
The Cat took neither the one nor the other: his instinct told him the shortest
road and he followed that road, as his belly, covered with red mud, proved. He
crossed the torrent in May, at a time when the rivers run high; he overcame his
repugnance to water in order to return to his beloved home. The Avignon Tom did
the same when crossing the Sorgue.




The deserter was reinstated in his attic at Serignan. He
stayed there for a fortnight; and at last we let him out. Twenty-four hours had
not elapsed before he was back at Orange. We had to abandon him to his unhappy
fate. A neighbour living out in the country, near my former house, told me that
he saw him one day hiding behind a hedge with a rabbit in his mouth. Once no
longer provided with food, he, accustomed to all the sweets of a Cat's existence,
turned poacher, taking toll of the farm-yards round about my old home. I heard
no more of him. He came to a bad end, no doubt: he had become a robber and must
have met with a robber's fate.














Snow in the Suburbs




by Thomas Hardy




        Every branch big with it,
        Bent every twig with it;
    Every fork like a white web-foot;
    Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
    The palings are glued together like a wall,
    And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.


        A sparrow enters the tree,
        Whereon immediately
    A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
    Descends on him and showers his head and eye
        And overturns him,
        And near inurns him,
    And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.



        The steps are a blanched slope,
        Up which, with feeble hope,
    A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
        And we take him in.




*




For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

--Christopher Smart