4 4 4 
[Dec. s, 1903. 
Some Snakes I Have Met. 
I. — The Kentucky Copperhead. 
Down in the beechwoods the heat was oppressive, 
and the four gray squirrels which I had acquired up in 
the hills, where the ripe mulberries were so attractive, 
were pulling down heavily, so I decided to take off 
my coat and swing it from my belt. Stepping to a 
nearby vine-grown tree, I was in the act of leaning 
my old muzzleloader against the tree, when I became 
suddenly chilled with horror by the sight of a huge, 
brownish, yellow snake. The upper part of his body 
protruding from the vine on the side of the tree Avas 
curved outward, the head pointed straight at and level 
with my eyes but a few inches away. I stared stupid- 
ly for one or two full seconds, taking in every feature, 
his partly opened mouth, the quickly playing red 
tongue, the gentle swaying of the poised head. Then 
my senses suddenly returned, and I dropped, or rather 
threw myself, backward, involuntarily retaining my hold 
on the gun. Scrambling quickly to my feet from where 
I had fallen sprawling on my back in the leaves, I 
started for the clearing, but turned at twenty feet, and 
decided to defend myself, no matter how great the 
peril. The copperhead had scarcely moved, but still 
swayed in the air, sharply outlined against the back- 
ground of deep green. Despite my great fright, I held 
the sight steadily on the swaying head. With cool and 
deliberate aim, not satisfied with one charge, I poured 
the contents of both barrels at the head of that ser- 
pent, and the effect was to obliterate the forward por- 
tion and completely tear of? the head. 
Then I again lost my nerve, or, perhaps, it would 
be more accurate to say that I found my nerves, for I 
suddenly began to tremble violently, so that it was with 
great difficulty I proceeded with reloading my gun. 
I wasted much powder, for I could scarcely hold the 
poAvder horn, and when it came to shot, it seemed as 
if as many of the precious pellets pattered on the 
leaves as went down into the yawning muzzle. At this 
stage the interwoven body of the dead snake began to 
relax, and in a minute fell into the dry leaves with 
what seemed to me a loud crash. This was the final 
shock to my shattered nerves; and dropping the gun, 
I burned the wind in the direction of the clearing. If 
a stop-watch could have been held on me then I might 
have won the fame that afterward carefully eluded me 
on the cinder path. 
Years after this incident I saw nothing to make me 
proud of my share in the action; for the copperhead 
certainly had the drop on me, and declined to shoot; 
but as a boy of fourteen, I felt few pangs of remorse. 
II.— The Arkansas Water Moccasin. 
One bright, hot morning in July, up four miles from 
the mouth of Mulberry creek, in the western part of 
Arkansas, five of us sat on the broad gunwale of a 
small flat bottom boat, which was being poled up the 
stream tow^ard the swimming hole. We were garbed 
in a costume said to have been fashionable at the time 
when Eden flourished, and as this was six years after 
my adventure with the copperhead, I had grown very 
bold and brave in dealing with snakes. With a good 
deal of mirth and tuneless singing, my boyish com- 
panions were pushing the boat rapidly through a placid 
reach of dead water. They had little regard for direc- 
tion, and presently they jammed the square bow of the 
boat with considerable force into the root wad of an 
upturned tree. The shock of the collision dislodged a 
large water moccasin, which had doubtless been taking 
X morning nap in the warm sunshine, far up on the 
matted roots of the tree. When he fell squarely into 
my lap he was a much surprised serpent. I was some- 
what astonished mi^self. I felt the weight of his heavy 
body, the movement of his sinuous folds as he writhed 
about, his head erect, growing angrier every second. 
He seemed to pay more attention to my companions 
than to me. I had no particular desire to nourish him 
in my bosom, and when he turned his ugly head upward 
toward my face, and I saw the white cotton-like in- 
terior of his mouth, I thought it about time to thrust 
him from me, and accordingly I threw him with con- 
siderable force against the bottom of the boat. The 
snake came right back, but I did not wait. I felt that 
I had done my full duty toward him. By this time the 
boat was deserted, with the exception of a small 
crippled lad, who had sat near the stern of the boat, 
liis white, pinched face showing much amusement at 
the antics of the chattering "white monkeys," whose 
brawny bodies he seemed to admire. 
It seems that as soon as all of us able-bodied cow- 
ards jumped into the water the moccasin turned his 
attention to the boy. The youth told me afterward that 
his first impulse was to scoop the snake on the blade 
of an oar and throw it into the midst of us as we 
swam away, but he said he knew of the deadly nature 
of the moccasin and that the snake had the reputation 
of biting with fatal effect while swimming, so he 
changed his mind. The battle lasted but a few min- 
utes, and then with calm deliberation the pale youth 
threw our clothes overboard, and announced that if 
anyone dared come near the boat he would throw the 
copperhead in his face. We watched him as the boat 
drifted slowly around the bend below us, and then we 
gathered up what clothing we could find, and bare- 
footed and ashamed, started on our silent march of 
three miles to town. There was no mirth and sing- 
ing. I have never been able to figure out why the 
copperhead spared me, for he surely had the drop on 
me, and he declined to shoot. 
III.— The California Rattlesnake. 
Last Christmas I had my first experience shooting 
California valley quail, also my first experience with a 
California rattlesnake. Mr. E. B. Collier, of Corona, 
Cal., who annually assists Santa Clans in his benevo- 
lent work of seeing that every little boy and girl 
in the land shall find big, firm golden oranges in the 
toes of their Christmas stockings, was my companion 
on the hunt. It is Mr. Collier's relaxation to hunt the 
quail after the rush of fruit to the Eastern holiday mar- 
kets; and a day afield with Collier means a limit bag, 
for he is an indefatigable hunter, and he knows where 
the quail are plentiful. 
We had flushed a covey of about 300 quail — no, that 
is not a misprint, Mr. Collier conservatively estimated 
them at that, though I was positive there were nearer 
a thousand. After seeing that the little setter Keno 
was comfortably settled in the buggy. Collier joined 
me, explaining that no dog could work in that cactus, 
and that we didn't want to shoot at the birds in there 
anyway, only to frighten and scatter them into the 
hills. We hustled the blue runners pretty hard, and 
soon had them scattering. Finally 75 or a hundred 
quail in a bunch flew to the hillside, and we quit the 
dry wash and went after them. AVe found excellent 
sport, as they soon squatted and got up singly and in 
pairs and threes, about the right distance for some 
rare shots and some marvelous misses. These quail 
had a way of getting up in rocket flight on the side of 
a hill and dropping suddenly out of danger just beyond 
the rocks on the top of the ridge. I had succeeded in 
stopping some of the gamy birds beautifully just at the 
skyline, and then I began to miss them with monoton- 
ous regularity. 
Mr. Collier came up the hill at this time and, with 
rare goodness of heart, consented to walk along the top 
while I worked out the side of the ridge. I was to take 
the straightaway shots and Mr. Collier promised to 
stop all those that came over the hill. He filled his 
part of the bargain and stopped all the birds he hit. 
The arrangement worked very well — for Collier. The 
birds all went over the hill, and to my shout of 
"Bird!" my companion responded with one barrel and 
sometimes two; and sometimes followed both shots 
by a word, which I shall not write here; and I took 
that as a sign that the strong fat man hadn't stopped 
that particular bird. 
Some portions of the ridge were very rough and 
rocky, and I had to hang on with one hand and hold 
my gun up with the other and work my way along. 
It was in such places as this that the wise little birds 
flushed, and Collier got in his good work, and I may 
have said things. 
We were on the southern side of the hill, the sun 
shone hot and the dust was rather unpleasant at 
times. Working along across a ledge I found myself 
in a position where I could only get around .slowly 
and with considerable difficulty. Collier was waiting 
for me to come around, and I think he was thirty or 
forty feet above me. 
At a point where there was a shelf of the ledge about 
level with my head, I had to reach up to a projecting 
rock on the rough wall of a small cavern-like opening 
in the rocks. Grasping the hold with my left hand, I 
drew myself upward and, with my gun held in my right 
hand, was in the act of swinging around the face of 
the short cliff, when I heard a sound instantly recog- 
nized, though I had not heard a rattlesnake's alarm for 
many years. It did not sound loud, but Collier heard 
it from his position above me. My bared forearm was 
within two inches of the rattles, which were vibrating 
nervously, and my face was within eight inches of the 
glittering eyes of the largest rattlesnake I had ever 
seen. He was coiled in his characteristic attitude, had 
heard me coming, but hadn't struck at my hand, which 
had passed over and within an inch of my head. 
As I stood so near, my forehead, eyes or the spot 
where the temporal artery goes in through the skull 
to the brain, would have been a ridiculously easy tar- 
get for the coiled and threatening rattler. I don't 
know how long I stood there, but it could have been 
but an instant, for in a flash I understood my danger. 
I simply let go all holds and dropped backward down 
the cliff. I believe I should have done this had the 
step meant a thousand feet. That death would have 
been no surer than to have remained. Luckily I landed 
six or seven feet below and experienced nothing more 
than a jar, unnoticed at the time. Mr. Collier laid 
down his gun and started down toward me; his face 
was ashen and he was unable to speak. I understood 
the anxiety and sympathy his face expressed, and 
hastened to reassui-e him that the fall had not hurt me 
in the least. 
"But the rattler," he shouted, "Didn't he strike you?" 
He repeated the question several times and seemed 
unable to realize that I had escaped. 
AVe worked around to the other side of the project- 
ing rocks, and when we had gotten down on a level 
with the ledge we again saw tlie snake. He had heard 
us and was once more coiling himself in a defensive 
position. 
"There he is," said Collier in a voice of suppressed 
excitement. "Now do things to him." 
When he saw my reluctance to "do things" he raised 
his gun and took a cool, steady aim. 
"I'm not going to let that serpent escape," said Mr. 
Collier, still holding his sighting eye on the spot, 
"AA''hy don't you want to shoot him?" 
But I could not explain why, and after a minute more 
insistence, my companion fired. 
Now comes the part of the whole action that has 
since recurred in my dreams. It had a horrible fascina- 
tion, and the scene comes back to me now vividly. 
AVith the report of the gun the rattlesnake attempted 
to strike. Lie opened wide his great jaws and launched 
his horrid head toward us. I saw the light-colored in- 
terior of his mouth, and imagined, at least, that I saw 
the great curved and erect fangs. Again he struck 
blindly in our direction; but as the body was torn to 
a narrow shred ten or twelve inches back of the head, 
the snake was unable to leave his position. Then sud- 
denly he: turned, and with bared fangs and widely dis- 
tended jaws, struck his own coils. Three times he re- 
peated this, but did not seem to have sufficient power 
to penetrate the skin, though I am by no means cer- 
tain of this, for, when Collier took a stick and went 
over to straighten out the body the snake struck the 
stick with such force as to hang to the stick with his 
long fangs. 
Under other circumstances I should have taken care- 
ful note of measurements; but I didn't care to go any 
nearer than where I stood. Mr. Collier cut off the 
rattles and brought them to me. Lie counted eighteen 
rattles and a button. The end of the rattles, where 
they should have tapered, was as broad as the rest of 
them, and Collier expressed the belief that several 
rattles had been broken off. 
Some of the impressions which I received at the 
time the snake was coiled were afterward amusing to 
me. For instance, I recalled Ransacker's skinned 
snake, and thought that if he should try to coil this 
one in his frying pan he would have to have a skillet 
as large as a wagon wheel. 
Then I thought of Coahoma, and wished he might 
have had this handsome specimen in his collection 
down in Mississippi, among those which were at that 
moment waiting for the weather to get cold enough to 
benumb them so that they might be decapitated. Some- 
how I had never felt easy about Coahoma and Tripod 
until I read of the final beheading of those unhappy 
ophidians. 
This Southern California rattler was a brownish-red 
and I had never seen a rattlesnake of anything but a 
harsh gray color. Then, too, this chap's head was 
round, broad and blunt at the nose. 
This was unquestionably my narrowest escape, for 
neither the copperhead nor the moccasin could have 
inflicted a wound which would have been so sure and 
swift of fatal result as a strike from this brown-red 
monster of the cactus land. 
A¥hile I was making ready for a trout fishing trip 
last spring, I prepared a small pocket outfit, which I 
have carried afield since then, and it has been a source 
of comfort to myself and to my hunting and fishing 
companion, who has accompanied me. I have a small 
case containing a hypodermic syringe and extra needle 
and two tubes. One tube contains small tablets of 
permanganate of potassium, the other contains tablets 
of digitalis. The latter I should probably not use un- 
less at some time it might be necessary to keep up 
failing heart action. Then I have a small phial con- 
taining a solution of permanganate of potassium i 
to 100. I had the druggist prepare the- solution be- 
cause, in this country water might not be available at 
the time of an emergency. This case I invariably carry 
in the pocket of my shooting coat. 
I still wonder why that rattlesnake did not strike. 
He had his finger on the hair trigger and could have 
pulled readily enough. 
About the Quail. 
The birds are still there, and after Krisktngle Kollier 
gets all the world supplied with refrigerated oranges, if ' 
he says the word, I shall join him, and we will go back 
down there — I'm not saying just where. 
Los Angeles, C^l., Nov. 15, pRANK E. WoLFE. 
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