water-snake

A water-snake, yellow-spotted and dark brown, is often seen swimming along with its head above the water: it is quite harmless, and is relished as food by the Bayeiye.

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa 2004

An eel-like water-snake (Marrína = Murœna Ophis) showed fight when attacked.

The Land of Midian 2003

Various lizards ran over the rocks; and we failed to secure a water-snake, the only specimen seen on the whole trip.

Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

Many of these creatures are furnished with feet, as the otter, the beaver, and the crocodile; some are furnished with wings, as the diver and the grebe; some are destitute of feet, as the water-snake.

The History of Animals 2002

One would have imagined that, if any natural association between snakes and water was the reason for this association, a water-snake would have been chosen to express the symbolism; or, if it was the mere rippling motion of the reptile, that all snakes or any snake would have been drawn into the analogy.

The Evolution of the Dragon G. Elliot Smith

At the school I saw the skin of a water-snake twenty-six feet nine inches long, but a book of pictures I had interested the boys far more.

Through Five Republics on Horseback, Being an Account of Many Wanderings in South America G. Whitfield Ray

He is the greatest coward I ever saw, and came in horror confiding to me that he had seen a snake, yards long, which Mr. W---- killed the day following, and it proved to be a small water-snake, hardly ten inches.

A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba Cecil Hall

Within fifty yards from the vessel a serpent's head, not unlike those we had seen, but infinitely larger, rose above the surface of the water, and presently a great water-snake began to swim slowly round our ship in decreasing circles.

Adventures in Southern Seas A Tale of the Sixteenth Century George Forbes

In another Sinhalese story (Parker, 3: 185-186, No. 222) a water-snake, pleased by a beggar's actions, promises to make him rich by creeping up the trunk of the king's tusk elephant and making the animal mad.

Filipino Popular Tales Dean Spruill Fansler

Like the others, it had a frame of poles covered with tanned skins; but it was distinguished from them by a singular "totem," -- an otter in the coils of a water-snake.

Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 Various