

Snuke-huntiug iii northern New Jersey and in the Ramapo Mountains, INew York 



association with nature. Catching the 

 snakes is only a part of the sport; it opens 

 a new field for the camera. Snakes are not 

 always submissive posers. I have often 

 worked for more than an hour to get one quiet 

 long enough for the portrait. Sometimes a 

 naturally quick, nervous snake would sur- 

 prise me by immediately assuming a satis- 

 factory pose and holding it the necessary 

 length of time for a clear exposure, while a 

 less agile and less sensitive one might make 

 the matter very difficult by moving at the 

 wrong time. 



Snakes have individual as well as class 

 peculiarities. P"'or instance, although it is 

 the common belief that a rattler will always 

 sound its rattle as warning of its presence, my 

 experience has been that this cannot be relied 

 upon. In fact it is apparently an exception 

 to the rule to find one thus giving a warning. 

 Of the numerous specimens whi(;h I have 

 captured during the past two or tliree seasons, 

 130 



only a very few have rattled before being 

 actually interfered with. These were ex- 

 tremely nervous examples and remained 

 such throughout the period of a month or 

 more that they were in my possession. Dur- 

 ing that time the slightest movement made 

 by any one within sight or sound of their 

 cages would be the signal for them to start 

 an aggressive buzzing. That this nervous- 

 ness or anger was peculiar to these particular 

 specimens and not to the season, there can 

 be little doubt. On one occasion, within a 

 few minutes of capturing one of these nervous 

 specimens, I caught another rattler of practi- 

 cally the same coloration and size and with 

 the same number of rattles, which when it 

 attempted to escape I headed off, forked and 

 then bagged by hand without its having 

 rattled at all — although it had repeatedly 

 struck at my stick. Frequently I have 

 known rattlesnakes to strike at my stick or 

 at me without having sounded the rattle. 



