CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
25 
the river swamp. All had been quiet about the premises on 
the day she visited him, and the place abounding with chickens 
of all sizes well, she reasoned, “What could be nicer than 
to leave two of her children to partake of such bounty?” There 
was only one flaw in her process of reasoning, but it was a fatal 
one—she left them at Uncle Dave’s house. 
A risky thing to do—kill a rattler about one’s premises and 
drag him up to the house for purposes of exhibition. He made 
this mistake once, and the very next day, while returning to 
his labors in the field, he met the mate following the trail over 
which the dead one had been dragged, and with the ease of a 
foxhound. Better leave them where they are slain, and when 
the mate calls at sunset and receives no reply he immediately 
picks up the trail, following it to the scene of the execution. 
Crawling about his unlucky mate for a time, thoroughly satis¬ 
fying himself that she is dead, he departs, and most likely will 
entirely leave the environment in search of another mate. 
Should the average person observe two trails converging, 
it would attract little more than a casual notice, but this old 
wizard is able to piece together a fairly long and interesting 
story from such tiny thread of evidence. One or the other of 
a pair had his sunset, or maybe his dawn call, go unanswered. 
Having received no response, he takes no chances, neither 
loses any time. Fearing that some evil has befallen his silent 
partner, he suspends his hunting for the day and goes in pur¬ 
suit of her. He picks up the trail at the point where they had 
been observed to converge. Why had the fleeing one left the 
spot so precipitately? Perhaps she had come dangerously near 
having a brush with some human. Maybe she was hungry and 
decided very suddenly to seek more promising hunting ground. 
Whichever was her motive, she knew well that there would not 
be the slightest danger of eluding her mate, so keen is their 
sense of smell. 
Doubtless when the writer projects the thought into the 
field of discussion that this interesting reptile is capable of 
hypnotizing its prey the scientific world will stand aghast at 
the presumptiousness of a layman advancing such a thought. 
Yet, this is exactly what we propose doing. Is it not recorded 
