Phil Robinson, The Benevolent Rattlesnake (1894)
“ What is there to be afraid of in a snake if you have got a stick in your hand or boots on your feet? Why, the boys used to kick you out from under the bushes and stamp upon you. You can't even bite through trousers. I have flicked a rattlesnake in the face with a handkerchief and jerked it up into the air by its fangs. Against a forked stick you are as helpless as a fish on the grass. ”
Phil Robinson, The Benevolent Rattlesnake (1894)
“ For, as you know yourself, after you have struck a certain number of times all your poison is gone, and you are no longer 'venomous.' And the snake knows it, and instead of striking when the mongoose comes close to it, it only bobs its head in imitation of striking and hisses, and then the mongoose knows the snake is harmless, and in a twinkling it gives it a bite. ”
Phil Robinson, The Benevolent Rattlesnake (1894)
“ One bite from a mongoose is enough for a snake, but it gives it a dozen all along its body, and then it eats it up like a carrot. Take my advice. If you have ever got a mongoose after you, don't stop to fight, but slip into a hole as quick as you can or you'll be eaten up like a carrot in about half an hour; and that's quicker work than your poison, after all, isn't it, my gentle durissus? Above all, don't go rattling. A mongoose doesn't believe in a snake's 'good intentions.'" "Was it by our rattling that you used to find us at the Salt Lake?" ”
