My Snake-Stick 

 | 



women, went anywhere in the woods without 

 carrying a snake-stick. 



This copperhead, or red adder, is reputed to 

 be a lover of dry lands. In the northern part 

 of his range, which reaches eastward to the 

 Connecticut River and northward to the Cat- 

 skills and follows the Appalachian ridges south- 

 westward, his proper home is on the wild 

 mountains, where he makes a den among the 

 rocks. 



Whether it was really a " headquarters," in- 

 habited by a regular colony of copperheads, as 

 has been known to be the habit of rattlesnakes, 

 or whether it was just a gathering for hiberna- 

 tion in company, as is the custom of many kinds 

 of snakes, I do not know; but something very 

 like a den was discovered a few years after. 



We had lived on the hillside half a dozen years 

 and had seen and heard of a few serpents near 

 us every year. Meanwhile two or three other 

 houses had been built in the woods on the ridge, 

 and some peat-bogs had been drained and turned 

 into market-gardens near us. All these occupa- 

 tions had been accompanied by the death of a 

 <*? 93 5 



