242 Recreations of a Sportsman 



the head, tail, or glistening body of a snake, and 

 where there were no snakes, often, the cast-off 

 skin of a snake; and this was not the most 

 favorable season for snakes. It was September 

 and frosts had come and some of the snakes had 

 retired. Still we were satisfied, and while my 

 companion stood in the centre of the road, armed 

 with a stick, looking timorously around, I made 

 my way through the tules, finding a snakeless 

 region, and cast into the cascades of the boiling 

 Klamath, fully expecting to land a snake. 



I was informed by a citizen that the display 

 was nothing to what it was a decade ago, when 

 literally thousands of snakes could be seen. 



It should be said that the reptiles are abso- 

 lutely harmless, except to certain individuals 

 w T ith sensitive nerves, and as they live upon the 

 young frogs, which would doubtless be disagree- 

 able, they are looked upon as are the buzzards 

 of Charleston, and the dogs of Constantinople, 

 and in a sense protected; at least the town gov- 

 ernment of Klamath had not moved against them 

 in 1907, and doubtless considers them in the 

 light of scavengers. I do not ask the reader to 

 believe this snake story, but if he, or she, wishes 

 to " see snakes " I commend a visit to this fasci- 

 nating road which I learned the following day 

 was liable to become an issue in local politics. 

 A recently arrived real estate agent said that 

 it was hurting the town to allow the snakes to 



