394 SNAKES. 



more be compared than can the constriction of the little slow- 

 worm round your fingers with the constriction of the anaconda. 



A word in conclusion about the rattlesnake's enemies ; 

 and of these hogs come first, next to man. Wild hogs, 

 peccaries, and deer in their native haunts, and doubtless 

 an immense number of snake-eating birds, devour young 

 rattlesnakes. Deer strike them, with their hoofs, jumping on 

 them with wonderful adroitness, so as to pin them down with 

 all four feet. Pigs in the west derive no small part of their 

 subsistence from snakes ; and, as is now a well-known fact, 

 the introduction of hogs has done more than anything else — 

 not even excepting the annual battiie — to diminish the number 

 of rattlesnakes. The venom being ' innocuous to hogs,' is a 

 fact only partially stated. A thin hog, bitten on a vein, 

 might die as speedily as any other victim. It is because the 

 venom fails to penetrate the fat, or, as Dr. Coues more ably 

 expresses it, ' the fluid fails to enter the circulation through 

 the layer of adipose tissue.' Pigs are not invariably 

 exempt, any more than is the mongoose, from the cobra's bite. 

 In both cases adroitness assists the animals to evade the 

 strike, and in the latter case the thick fur of the mongoose is 

 as great a protection to it as the fat is to the hog. 



Dr. Coues mentions a danger not often anticipated in dealing 

 with rattlesnakes when you wish to examine them. This is 

 their habit of twining themselves around the arm, or wherever 

 they can get hold. * Grasp it fearlessly at the back of the 

 neck,' he says ; * but even then a large one can constrict enough 

 to paralyze both arms.' A man who was thus trammelled 

 had to be relieved by a bystander. We are not always pre- 

 pared for constricting rattlesnakes ! 



