CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
59 
a small army of hunters, among whom are his four sons, that 
they may carry on the war when his vision has become so poor 
as not to warrant incurring further risk. 
His labors were on one occasion rewarded by bringing in 
alive such a splendid specimen that he conceived the idea of 
keeping him in a screened box for a time that his friends might 
come and view him. Finally this became tiresome to the ladies 
of the household, so frequently were they interrupted from 
their domestic duties. 
The last person to view him alive was an old darkey who 
came up out of a nearby woodland where he had been “streak¬ 
ing” his turpentine trees. He had imbibed rather freely some 
of the contents of a flask containing his favorite “snake-bite 
remedy”—raw, unrefined, Georgia corn liquor. Having viewed 
the rattler for some time, he turned to go away, but paused 
and inquired: “Miss, you sez you wants dis snake kilt?” The 
lady reaffirmed her intentions of having it done, but without 
the slightest idea of the thoughts that were taking definite form 
in his mind. Turning back, he picked up the box and emptied 
its deadly contents upon the ground in the back yard. Teaping 
upon him with the suddenness of a wild Rocky Mountain goat, 
he stamped the life out of him in less time than it takes to 
relate the story, while the lady stood aside, horrified, breath¬ 
less, and too paralyzed to speak. After regaining her com¬ 
posure, but still under the influence of uncontrollable rage, 
she said: “Why, you crazy man, what on earth do you mean? 
If you are so anxious to die, then please go back into the woods. 
If the sheriff should find a dead man in my back yard, he 
might want me to do some explaining to a jury.” Such a sting¬ 
ing rebuke served somewhat to sober him, and he said, apolo¬ 
getically, “Miss, d’as de way I alius kills ’em, an’ I nevah is 
bin bit yit.”** 
We have read many articles by herpetologists, or reptile 
experts, holding forth to public ridicule the contention of lay¬ 
men to the effect that some serpents will, in time of danger, 
swallow their young. They have, so they say, successfully ex¬ 
ploded such myths. All they have offered, insofar as the writer 
is aware, has been purely from a standpoint of theory, such 
**See sketch, page 126. 
