CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
47 
own. Finding him in the doorway of a gopher hole, they would 
block his exit with care, intending to return the following day 
with spade and dig him out. To their surprise they would 
learn, on their return, that he had dug himself out first. Thus 
trapped and left to his own devices he will lose no time drill¬ 
ing a round hole through the earth, thus evading his captor. 
The python finds his hard beak a convenient weapon with 
which to subdue his prey. Suspending himself from a limb 
overhanging a trail through the jungle, he delivers a blow with 
such force as to take all the fight out of the average animal. 
Then, before he can completely recover from the shock, his 
bones are all crushed. 
As we listened to the details of this rather unusual combat, 
considering the posture of the two rattlers, we could not but 
reflect over the incident, vainly endeavoring to establish some 
connection between this habit of the serpent and the caduceus, 
that ancient emblem, dating back to ancient Egypt and Greece. 
Previously we had treated the subject very lightly—never for 
an instant did it occur to us that artists of the past had accu¬ 
rately depicted an actual event, but rather regarded it as a bit 
of the creative genius of some artist or craftsman possessing 
an overstimulated imagination. 
It is a matter of common knowledge that the rattler is more 
in love with dry land than with water, but anyone who fancies 
himself safe from their menace while out in the water would 
do well to revise his views on the subject, since they swim lakes, 
ponds and rivers with as much ease as a duck, and might be 
encountered almost anywhere. They are capable of inflating 
themselves like an innertube. Their buoyancy, therefore, en¬ 
ables them to devote all their energies to swimming, and none 
is consumed in the process of keeping afloat. 
Uncle Dave’s war, sport, or pastime, whichever one might 
elect to term it, is by no means without its hazards, as the 
reader might readily surmise. The rules governing the game 
are by no means as liberal as that of baseball—one strike, and 
you’re out. 
When a sufficient inspection of one of these holes has been 
made, and his telltale signs warrant the conclusion that such 
