Northern water snake The belly also varies in color. It can be white, yellow, or gray. Usually it also has reddish or black crescents. The northern water snake is nonvenomous and harmless to humans, but superficially resembles the venomous cottonmouth and is often killed unnecessarily as a result of this mistaken identity. The two can be easily distinguished by morphological traits: the water snake has a longer, more slender body and a flattened head the same width as the neck, round pupils, and no heat-sensing pits. The cottonmouth has a fatter body, a wedge-shaped head with prominent venom glands that are wider than
The Boyne Water God, all true Protestants, and I will say no further, But had the Papists gained that day, there would have been open murder". Folk memories in the 17th century when the song was possibly written, were no doubt still very fresh concerning the various retributive massacres between Irish natives and Protestant settlers in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. At the climactic scene of C. S. Lewis's novel "That Hideous Strength", when protagonists are preparing for a dangerous fateful encounter with their enemies, the character MacPhee, an Ulster Protestant, is shown humming "The Boyne Water". Lewis gives a slightly deviant text: