CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
257 
mouth and alimentary tract be free from ulcers. It is the con¬ 
dition it sets up in the blood which produces fatal results. 
There are many elements, all harmless under ordinary circum¬ 
stances, which would produce death if injected into the circu¬ 
lation, not that they are necessarily poisonous, but rather that 
they do not belong in the blood stream. 
The writer was once asked by an aged chemist known 
throughout the nation: “In your long study of the rattler in 
the wild state, just what do you consider the most interesting 
things you have learned about him?” My answer was that the 
interesting things about a rattler were many and varied, but, 
in my judgment, the mysterious power of his eyes was the most 
baffling and absolutely defied satisfactory explanation. Few 
indeed are those who have ever seen it, and their description 
of it differs slightly, some describing it as having the appear¬ 
ance of a flickering electrical beam and others describing it 
as a handful of mirror chips so maneuvered as to throw the 
reflected rays of the sun upon the eyes of the observer. Small 
animals, and even human beings, both weaken under its power. 
Who knows but that the diamond-back might be in possession 
of the death-ray for which would-be world-conquering war¬ 
lords have searched so long? Perhaps it may be well for the 
human race if the rattler continues the lone possessor of this 
fiendish device. 
There are only a few instances recorded in which man ac¬ 
tually fell victim to this mysterious power of the rattler’s eyes, 
or his other means of fascination, but the writer holds firmly 
to the view that if a man, strong of body and will, were placed 
in a quiet cell with a rattler, and neither of them disturbed or 
given nourishment, that the rattler would survive the man, and 
that the latter would sooner or later fall victim to these mys- 
erious powers of the reptile. 
It has been noted by those who cultivate an intimacy with 
the diamond-back that the female appears to fast while carry¬ 
ing her young about foraging for them. They explain readily 
that since the mother has the habit of swallowing her young 
