Rattlesnake

“ Why, if this ere rattlesnake could laugh as well as bite, he'd have a good haw-haw over Miss Lina's way of fighting snakes. It takes something to kill them, I tell you. But I've got him—he knows me. Look at him now!"
Ralph moved a step forward and looked down upon the rattlesnake, towards which Ben was pointing with his ash branch, as unconcerned as if it had been an earth-worm.
The rattlesnake had loosened all his folds, and lay prone upon his back striving to burrow his head beneath the leaves and moss, evidently without power to escape or show fight. ”

“ The rattlesnake appears to vary in color and markings in the different localities where it is found, and there are fourteen or fifteen varieties, but all carry the rattles, shake them warningly, and coil before they strike. The rattlesnake does not want to fight and if you keep at a safe distance it will glide off in another direction, but it is safest not to venture within striking distance, which is said to be two-thirds the length of the snake, even if the snake has not coiled, for it moves quickly and strikes like a flash. ”

“ I have always associated rattlesnakes with hollows and gullies and impenetrable depths of thicket. Whenever you visit a neighborhood of weird and haunting wildness you will be told (by people who have not put it to the test) that there are rattlesnakes there. The rattlesnake seems to be a sort of symbol of the dark and forbidding spots in nature—gloomy fastnesses, dank caverns on mountainsides, and the like. ”

“ The rattlesnake is not among the most active of the species of snakes: it never springs a greater distance than its own length, which rarely exceeds four feet. It is owing to this that the black snake has the advantage, being able to spring from a greater distance on its prey, and, from its rapid motion and method of seizure to deprive it at once of the power of injecting its venom. ”

“ One large rattlesnake lay dead at my feet, while old Bob was shaking the life out of another of equal size. It was the noise made by the rattles on the tails of the snakes that had sounded so strangely. I had never seen a rattlesnake until that moment, and therefore did not know what was making such a singular noise. Lottie lay in my arms as pale as death, and I saw that she had been bitten on the wrist by one of the snakes. There were two small holes made through the skin, and two little drops of blood had come out through the wounds. The flesh had already begun to turn a yellowish color. ”

“ Here the story about the reptile soon spread; and that evening all the men connected with the camp came in to view the rattlesnake.
“I’m very thankful that you got out of this as luckily as you did,” remarked Mr. Obray to Roger. Then he told all of his men that they must be very careful when they went among the rocks and through the bushes. “Because, you know,” he explained, “where there is one rattlesnake there may be more. I was told by those who made the first survey for the railroad that they saw no snakes of any kind in this vicinity. ”

“ One of the snakes, which we saw killed on Bass Island, in Lake Erie, had no more than four joints in its rattle, and yet it was nearly four feet long.
The skin of the rattlesnake, when the animal is wounded, or otherwise enraged, exhibits a variety of beautiful tints, never seen at any other time. It is not with the teeth which the rattlesnake uses for ordinary purposes that it strikes its enemy, but with two long crooked fangs in the upper jaw, which point down the throat. ”

“ An intelligent Indian student declares that none of his race will handle a rattlesnake unless its fangs have been removed; that this plant takes its name from the resemblance of its netted-veined leaves to the belly of a serpent, and not to their curative powers; and, finally, that the Southern tribes, especially so reverence the rattlesnake that, far from trying to cure its bite, they count themselves blessed to be bitten to death by one. ”

“ A respectable and experienced rattlesnake, many years established in business, has been accustomed to spread panic everywhere within ear and eye shot; everything capable of motion has started off at the faintest rustle of his rattles, and his view of animal life from those expressionless eyes has invariably been a back view, and a rapidly diminishing one. ”

“ The courage of the rattlesnake is by no means remarkable, and it is but seldom that they will dispute the right of way with a man who is not afraid of them. They are sluggish in their movements, and accomplish the most of their traveling during the nocturnal hours. They feed upon almost every variety of living creatures which they can overpower. They are not partial to water, but when compelled to cross a river or lake, they perform the feat in a most beautiful manner, holding their heads about one foot from the surface, and gliding along at a rapid rate. ”

“ They are sometimes found along irrigation canal banks where they go for water, and because they find rodents congregating there for the same reason. Unless surprised, cornered, teased, handled, or injured, a rattlesnake usually will try to remain hidden or will endeavor to crawl away rather than strike. ”

“ Now you must know that a rattlesnake is not at all like a lion or a bear, although just as dangerous in its own way. It will not chase you; it can only spring a distance equal to its own length, and it has to wait and coil itself up in a ring, sounding its warning all the time, before it can strike at all. So if you are ever so little distance from it when you see it first, you can easily escape from it. The only danger is from stepping on it without seeing it. But Marland's snake was already coiled, and it was hardly more than a foot from the entrance to the kennel. ”

“ A full grown diamond-back rattlesnake, which may attain the extreme length of eight feet, is perhaps the most dangerous of all the American poisonous reptiles, though a fully grown coral-snake may be regarded as almost, if not quite as, deadly. Next to these a large sized cotton-mouth moccasin is perhaps most to be dreaded, to be followed, depending upon their size, by the other varieties of rattlesnakes, the copperheads, and finally the ground-rattler. The larger the serpent inflicting the wound the greater is the result to be dreaded ”

“ Before he died his body was covered with livid spots, resembling those on the snake he had killed.
In another paper, the name and date of which I forgot to note, I read of a man upon whose arm, after his death from the bite of a rattlesnake, a perfect representation of the reptile was found, winding spirally from the shoulder to the wrist. Daudin gives seven varieties of the rattlesnake, all furnished with the deadly venom which causes this serpent to be dreaded more than any other upon the continent of America. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a link between the last-named snake, the ‘copper-head,’ and the rattlesnake, having head-shields like the former, and tail of the latter. These small species no doubt help to add to the confusion of evidence regarding the virulence of rattlesnake bites, one person affirming that they are deadly, and another, that recovery is common. The degree of venom between the smallest and the largest of the Crotalidæ can no [394] more be compared than can the constriction of the little slow-worm round your fingers with the constriction of the anaconda. ”

“ It is a blessing that a rattlesnake has to coil before it can spring. No one has ever written up life from a rattler's point of view, although it has been unfeelingly stated that fear of snakes is an inheritance from our simian ancestors. ”

“ One of its varieties is red, with darker red markings and a white tail. The familiar rattlesnake of the plains east of the Rocky Mountains is Crotalus confluentus, which is of moderate size and dull hue; its mainstay of food is found among the prairie-dog towns. A similar but smaller species (C. oregonus) takes its place west of the Rockies, from British Columbia to southern California. The "tiger" rattlesnake, yellow barred with black; the "horned" rattler, which, like the Egyptian horned viper, has a trick of advancing sidewise, and consequently has the popular name "sidewinder" ”

“ It was one of the superstitions of the New England colonists that the rattlesnake had the power of charming or fascinating human beings. Whittier's story, "The Rattlesnake Hunter," is based upon this fact. An old man with meagre and wasted form is represented as devoting his life to the extermination of the reptiles among the hills and mountains of Vermont, the inspiring motive of his action being the death [Pg 98] of his young and beautiful wife, many years previously, from the bite of a rattlesnake. ”

“ He is both an expert and to a certain extent venom-proof at the same time; but for all that the snake was, as he affirmed, tame enough to be handled with impunity by those who might have sufficient courage to venture. That interesting and accommodating rattlesnake is no more, but was even more honoured in death than in life. A true martyr to science, it was sacrificed that its friend and teacher might prosecute his experiments, and also swallow some of the contents of its poison gland, in [522] order to convince two or three challenging sceptics that he could do this with impunity. ”

“ And among the living things none was better adapted to the cowboy’s purpose than the rattlesnake. As a matter of fact, there were few fatalities from snake-bite among cowmen. The rattlesnake rarely strikes without warning. He presents no danger to mounted men; and when dismounted, the cowboy was afforded good protection by his boots. Yet because of his terrifying aspect, his blood-curdling rattle, and the reputation he had acquired in the East, the rattlesnake was an especial source of terror to the greenhorn ”

“ This snake inhabits wooded regions, avoiding prairies. It is especially fond of rocky districts, and hence is most numerous among mountains, where it is inclined to gather in considerable numbers in certain holes and caverns in the autumn, in order to undergo the winter sleep in closely entwined companies. About nine young are born annually in mid-summer. The Southern States have a still larger species known as the ‘diamond rattlesnake’ (Crotalus adamanteus) on account of the rhomboidal black blotches, each perfect in all its angles, and edged with yellow, which ornament its yellowish body. ”

“ I have been as much inclined to stop and talk to a horse or a little pig as to a person, and many times I longed to have the different ones wait till I could get hold of and caress them. The farther I travel the more this feeling grows on me, but there is still one animal that I have not yet learned to love or to want to squeeze, and that is a rattlesnake. ”

“ The purple-veined leaves, whose curious markings give to the plant its common name, grow close to the ground and are supposed to be efficacious in rattlesnake bites. Here again crops out the old “doctrine of signatures,” for undoubtedly this virtue has been attributed to the species solely on account of the fancied resemblance between its leaves and the markings of the rattlesnake.
H. scabrum is another common species, which may be distinguished from the rattlesnake-weed by its stout, leafy stem and unveined leaves. ”

“ Once we very narrowly escaped a rattlesnake which appeared close to us, but Providence has ordered it that most of these creatures should be more afraid of man than man need be of them, and they make off rapidly at his approach. If, however, they are trodden on, or are disturbed waiting for their prey, they become savage, and revenge themselves on the intruders. In most instances, the only chance of saving the life of a person bitten is at once to suck the wound.
At length it was time for us to go back to the egaritea, that we might return to the schooner. ”

“ The Rattlesnake of South America takes its name from its warning rattle, a sound made by some loose bones at the end of its tail, which knock together when it moves, and so give fair warning of such a dangerous foe being in the neighbourhood. Its bite has been known to cause death in two minutes, and when it does not kill immediately, it produces a dreadful burning feeling all over the body. Horses and dogs show very great terror if they see these snakes ”

“ It would appear, however, that the legitimate owners are not expelled by the rattlesnake, but with their family continue to live in the same burrow—as long, that is to say, as the family lasts, for of the relations subsisting between it and the reptile there is now no doubt. ”

“ The woods were now full of birds: I saw the lesser species every where hopping on the ground, or creeping in bushes, without any great degree of shiness; it is therefore very easy for all kinds of snakes to approach and bite them. I believe that the rattlesnake has nothing to do but to ly still, and without waiting long, some little bird or other will pass by or run directly upon her, giving her an opportunity of catching it, without any enchantment. ”

“ The report of the great encounter reached eastern dailies, and was published as a Sunday feature story in one of the leading Omaha papers. It was accompanied by gorgeous pictures of the girl in a leather skirt, riding boots, and cow-boy hat, entering a sod house, and before her, coiled and poised to strike, lay a monster rattlesnake. Turning on her heel and jerking the bridle from her horse's head, she made a terrific swing at Mr. Rattlesnake, and he, of course, "met his Waterloo." This, so the story read, was the eightieth rattlesnake she had killed. ”