THE HOME OF THE ALLIGATOR 



367 



he will look as threatening and deadly as any animal could, but, unless 

 he be shedding, he will seldom strike if he can avoid it by escaping from 

 his tormentors. 



Although he had been handling and collecting snakes for thirty 

 years, my guide had, until this trip, never been bitten by a rattler. One 

 morning he had caught, in a noose at the end of a pole, a large rattler 

 that was shedding and was, therefore, very vicious. Where a snake 

 was lying in an inaccessible place, or was, as in this case, unusually 



Leaves of the " Cabbage Palmetto. 



vicious, a noose was generally used and the snake thus transferred to 

 a bag carried for the purpose. As he was being lowered into the bag, 

 this particular snake gave a sudden twist and one of his poison fangs 

 cut a long gash in the hand of his captor. Fortunately for the man, 

 only the extreme tip of the fang penetrated the skin, so that little or no 

 poison was injected. The guide always carried a hypodermic syringe 

 for just such emergencies, so that a dose of potasium permanganate 

 was soon injected into the wound, and no ill effects from the bite 

 were felt. 



Although the bite of these rattlers is not necessarily fatal to man, 

 almost any one in that region can tell of one or more cases where death 

 has followed within a few hours of the time that the wound was 

 inflicted. 



