WITH UNCLE :)4M'S iUrURALl STS. 



Frid, 



HOT FCR PUBLICATION 



SPEAKING TIME: 10 Minutes. 



All Regions, 



HCF TO PROTECT VCLRSELF JRCV. S\^AKSS. 



GI-ENI NG AIINOU NCB.^EICT ; Today our :ld friend the WILDS MAN is going to tell us 

 about good snakes, bad snakes, and finally how to protect ours?elver- from the bad 

 snakes, and wind up by telling us what to do in case we are actually bitten "by 

 a poisonous snake. He got this snake inf or.r.ation by interviewing Uncle Sam's 

 Naturalists, and these Naturalists pro^ra^iis come to you regularly from this sta- 

 tion, every two weeks, through the cooperation of the United States Devartrnent 

 of Agriculture. All right Mr. WILDS lilM, bring on the snakes. 



All right folks, put on yc^or boots, get the garden hoe or anything else 

 that's handy — because we're going to talk about snakes, and you r,-ay want to de- 

 fend yourself before we get through. '.Then it comes to talking about snakes, I 

 don't have to draw on my imagination, because I've had the 'been there ex-oer- 

 ience'. I was born in tre South, where a "ple^itiful supply of stories about 

 black snakes and coach- whips develooed many of the children into fast runners, 

 and I 'ra speaking the truth when I tell you that I was once a fast man when there 

 was a snake of any kind '►^ehind me — and I wasn't by myself either. I have ?ia.d 

 plenty of compgn; when it came to getting away from a snake. 



Snake <=tories are legion. There have been more mythical stories told 

 about snakes than about all the rest of the aniv.al kingdom combined, including 

 those told about Brother Fox and Peter RabMt. Now the fairy tales of child- 

 hood usually become vague wHh the oass^ng of years, but this is not always true 

 when it comes to si'iake stories. The superstitious fear of snakes xn general has 

 become so firmly fixed in our^ minds that it is very frequently impossirle to 

 eradicate it. For example: * 



The coach-whip is a slender, swif t--':ovj ng, browni sh- black snake of the 

 southern and southwestern part of the United States — and is entirely harmless 

 to man. Yet the coach-whip snake has long been a terror to the colored popula- 

 tion of the South, and many weird stories are told of Negroes fownd de^d in the 

 road from being whipped to death by one of these snakes. Now the coach-whip 

 snake has a habit of raising the for# pai't of the body when traveling — and if 

 you hjBppen to be in front looking back anisee that swift-movirg snake aoving 

 along with its head about a foot up ir; the air — whitefolks, blackfolks, a.:A all 

 other kinds of folks usually kick dust rn the snake's face as the.;' follow the 

 first impulse to depart hurriedly for regions uTiknown, 



— ooOoo-- 



