CORRESPONDENCE AND INFORMATION 



381 



fORRESPONDENCE 



^ ~^ and Information 



X 



Snakes Charm Their Victims. 



Augusta, Wis. 



To the Editor : 



In your December number, just re- 

 ceived, page 243, under the title, 

 "Feeding Habits of Snakes," I find the 

 following: "This trick of striking and 

 letting go seems to be the only founda- 

 tion for all the old yarns of serpents 

 fascinating their victims." 



My entire boyhood was spent in 

 Southwestern Nebraska, on a cattle 

 ranch, and it fell to my lot to "herd" 

 the cattle throughout the summer sea- 

 sons for a good many years. This is 

 a semi-arid country, and the principal 

 grass was "buffalo grass," a grass that 

 is woolly and lies very close to the 

 ground — so close that snakes crawled 

 over it instead of through it, and if 

 one were to observe their actions, there 

 would be nothing to obstruct the view. 



On one occasion, I saw a meadow 

 lark fluttering and jumping sidewise 

 in an arc of a circle of perhaps forty 

 degrees, and a radius of perhaps sixty 

 feet, screaming all the time, and when 

 she got to one end of the arc, she 

 would flutter and flounder to the other 

 end, each time approaching a little 

 closer to the rattlesnake, which re- 

 mained motionless, with head erect, 

 looking at the bird, except that it 

 darted its tongue out and back. 



The bird gradually approached the 

 snake, until within a very few feet, 

 when it lay trembling and screaming. 

 At this point, I interfered, and the bird, 

 as well as it could in view of its terror 

 and exhaustion, got away, and so far 

 as I could observe, when a few minutes 

 had elapsed, was entirely over all ill 

 effects of its experience. 



On another occasion, I saw exactly 

 the same thing, except that instead of 

 a bird, one of the common western 

 gophers was the victim. It screamed, 

 and jumped sidewise from end to end 

 of the arc, tail erect, back bowed up, 

 approaching a little nearer the rattler 

 each time, until finallv it was lving- 



prostrate within a few feet of the 

 snake, when again I interfered, and 

 the gopher got away, and aside from 

 its evident exhaustion, from which it 

 seemed soon to recover, was appar- 

 ently unharmed. 



Had these animals been struck, I 

 feel quite sure they would not have 

 so promptly recovered, to say the least, 

 and I have always felt that there was 

 some virtue in the claim that snakes 

 (at least the rattlesnakes) "charmed" 

 their victims, at least in some in- 

 stances. 



Yours very truly, 



Wm. A. Williams. 



Disappearing Wild Life. 



Seattle, Washington. 



To the Editor :— 



I wish to express my appreciation of 

 the work you are doing in preserving 

 the animal and bird life of the country. 



I came from a family who have help- 

 ed cut down the forest and hunt the 

 game from Plymouth to the Pacific and 

 as a boy there was none more keen to 

 hunt than was I. I have restrained the 

 wish and where others have killed 

 many my record has been few and for 

 ten years I have not used a more dan- 

 gerous weapon than the camera. 



In 1870 along the west coast were 

 literally million's of ducks and geese. 

 To-day I ride from Seattle to San Fran- 

 cisco and see not a dozen waterfowl 

 on the trip. In the valley of the Yukon 

 in Alaska, they are more scarce each 

 year. I have seen the buffalo exter- 

 minated, the antelope almost disap- 

 pear, the elk nearly vanish, and the 

 mountain sheen become rare. Ev- 

 ery kind of wild game bird and ani- 

 mal on the Pacific coast from the Arc- 

 tic Circle to the Mexican boundary has 

 been driven to the narrowest limits. 

 I hope that the work such men as your- 

 self and Dr. Hornaday of New York 

 are doing may save the last remnant of 

 the vast numbers of wild birds and ani- 



