Yesterday, I found a snake in the basement. It was dead, but only recently so, because I found it in the middle of the floor, in the most trafficked part of the basement. It probably died within the previous twenty-four hours, otherwise I would have seen it before. It was a small snake, only about a foot long and only about as thick as a pencil. I don’t know what kind of snake that it was. I’ve found Garter snakes in the backyard before, but this one was brown in color, so it could have been a Copperhead. It certainly wasn’t a rare Ethiopian Mountain Adder, but I don’t know what it was. I suspect that the snake slithered beneath the back basement door, probably in the fall, before it got cold. It probably died of starvation and/or exposure, the basement gets pretty cold in the winter. It is a mystery. This snake does not even take the cake for the most unusual animal that I have found in the basement. Years ago, when I was still bicycling in the park before dawn, I would frequently hear the sound of a cricket coming from the recesses of the basement. Even at this time of year. Whenever I would investigate the sound, it would go silent. One morning though, I managed to get the light on in the front room and there was said cricket in the center of the floor, it was a cave cricket. Missouri being the cave state makes the quite common around here. In this case though, as an accidental invader, this cricket was a pest that would eat fabric. So, I stepped on it.