RETURN FROM PITTSBURG 317 



sticks. The hogs, which everywhere run loose about 

 the farm and in the woods, are deadly enemies of 

 rattle-snakes, and eat them greedily. The snake strikes 

 at them in vain, either the poison has no effect on the 

 hogs or the teeth do not penetrate the fat skin. Many 

 of the snakes succumb to the fires, kindled either pur- 

 posely by hunters or new settlers, or neglected by 

 travellers. Snakes are said not to go out of the way 

 of fire, but to rear up and hiss until enveloped. The 

 copper-bellied snake is more dangerous and more 

 dreaded because it gives no warning but attacks in 

 silence. However, by no means every wound inflicted 



* J 



by the rattle-snake or the copper-belly is certainly 

 fatal. It is nothing uncommon to hear of persons 

 being bitten, but they seem seldom to die of the bites. 

 Different circumstances are to be taken into account, 

 through which the danger of the bite may be dimin- 

 ished or increased. It is generally regarded that the 

 poison of snakes in the -warmer parts of America, in 

 Virginia, Carolina, &c., w r orks more swiftly and more 

 dangerously. And that further, in one and the same 

 region, (and hence in the southern provinces) the 

 sharpness and activity of the poison are heightened by 

 the heat of summer, and thus a bite in the warm sum- 

 mer and autumn months is by so much the more dan- 



*/ 



gerous. It is altogether probable that the exterior 

 heat may have an important influence on the fluids of 

 the snake, these being acted on differently according 

 to the heat of the surrounding body. And it is quite 

 as likely that something may be due to the corruptions 

 in the juices of the human body occasioned by the hot 

 season. From these reasons, then, snake-bites, espe- 

 cially in the autumn and in more southern parts, and 



