William Eggington in The New York Times:
Riding my bike recently through Baltimore’s swampy summer heat, I pulled up sharply to avoid running over a yard-and-a-half-long eastern rat snake slowly making her way across the hot asphalt. I picked her up and placed her at the root of the nearest tree, which she quickly scaled until she reached a branch at more or less the height of my head. Perched there, with her body draped around the tree trunk, she cocked her head forward in a classic snaky pose, and stared at me with what I took to be a look of astonished relief.
I tell this story not to try to show that I’m brave. I like snakes and can recognize the few venomous species in the region. My point is, rather, to raise a question that Christine Webb explores in her excellent new book, “The Arrogant Ape.” When I had my moment with that rat snake: Was it all in my mind? Or was there something actually going on in her mind, too?
More here.
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