If you cannot quite match the author's enthusiasm indicated by such chapter heads as ""So You Own a Boa"" or ""More at Home with Cobras,"" nevertheless Mr. Kauffeld presents some intriguing anecdotes and information about reptilian ways. Snakes in captivity, saith the Curator of Reptiles at the Staten Island Zoo, will not only take dead food but, because of caged ennui, often prefer it. Don't fuss around with natural settings--snakes just need a clean spot with a hiding place. And it's useless to wrap a chilly snake in a blanket since it emits no bodily heat. Many, many specific tips for the fancier here, but it is in his tales of vipers nursed in the curatorial bosom and field captures that Mr. Kauffeld's prose shimmers with the exaltation only devoted naturalists know. In a series of ""Harks"" (or reptilian equivalents) the triumphs are recounted: ""It could be, and it definitely WAS. . . a SILUS!"" or ""It is difficult to describe the joy I felt when I held that snake."" From his Bullsnake who fasted an anxious 165 days when the author was fifteen, to the acquisition of the first zoo collection of all thirty-two varieties of U.S. rattlesnakes, Mr. Kauffeld makes a case for a much maligned creature. Never harass a snake in the grass.