2.14 
BY WILL A. WRIGHT 
August day while trailing a deer in the Santa 
Susana mountains of Cali:*^ornia, I came to a log 
lying across the trail and started to step over. Just 
on the other side, partially concealed, la}^ a big rattle¬ 
snake. 
I saw a warning in the gleam of his villainous e3"es. 
Going back a few paces I secured a stout stick and ad¬ 
vanced again to the log. The reptile started to crawl 
away, but a blow across the middle of the back stopped 
him. Then he began a vigorous rattling and kept it going 
till he was dead. I had no antidote with me, was three 
miles from m3^ horse and twice as far from any habitation. 
Had I been looking elsewhere and not on the trail, and de¬ 
pending on the theor3" that a rattlesnake alwa3"S gives warn¬ 
ing on the approach of an enemy, I should, perchance, 
never have narrated this. 
Just a 3"ear after the above incident, while shooting 
doves in a canon in another range, I was walking down the 
side of a gulch, when instinctive^^ glancing downward, I 
saw poised above the thin grass the horn3" tail of a rattler. 
It la3" just as it had been crawling when interrupted and in 
the exact place where 1113' next step would have been. One 
step more would have been fatal. Walking around him I 
observed that he was in the blind state. As he would 
neither rattle nor coil I threw clods of dirt before him ; still 
he would not alter his demeanor. A bullet from mv revol¬ 
ver severed his head and ended his sluggish career. 
In removing the skin from this snake I found the cuticle 
—the onl3^ part of the skin they shed—almost read3' to 
come off. This I tore off in pieces, then removed the 
main skin. 
All our snakes discard the old epidermis in the months 
of July and August. During this period they are said to 
Illustrated from drawings by the author 
