St. Patrick famously drove all snakes from Ireland in order to cleanse the church. There are no snakes there--but there is the Slow Worm, which looks like a snake, though it is technically a lizard. It thrives on Ireland's western coast.
St. Patty drove out all the snakes
But he made a big mistake,
For the Slow Worm he forgot to ban,
And it's certainly not an also-ran.
It wrestles for its mate's approval,
And grows to twenty inches as a rule.
It can sniff a predator with its tongue
And on its back: a hundred rungs.
Suburban gardeners like it a lot
For all the snails and slugs it blots,
But the domestic cat is its personal foe,
Against which it is all too slow.
Still, it lives a long, long time,
And in a Danish zoo for the cost of a dime
You could see it on a heated floor,
Still itching along at age fifty-four.
