258 
CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
when danger threatens, then she must of necessity keep her 
stomach empty so as to provide space for the little ones should 
the necessity arise. Notice has been taken of many newspaper 
and magazine articles, evidently written by some pseudo-scien¬ 
tist, and in every instance the contention was put forward that 
if a rattler actually swallowed their young as laymen contend 
that the gastric juices of the mother’s stomach would quickly 
destroy them. Many well-informed people are taken in by 
such presumptions since their line of reasoning sounds most 
convincing. Such logic leads to an erroneous conclusion, in¬ 
asmuch as it is based upon utterly false premise. This is just 
one more instance where the college-trained herpetologist fum¬ 
bles the pass and this self-instructed old master of arts recovers 
the ball. The college man builds up his theories around the 
supposition that the gastric juices of the rattler attacks every¬ 
thing within the stomach as in the case of other animals, but 
in this he is mistaken. Strange as it may sound, the stomach 
of a rattler is used chiefly as their cold storage plant, and small 
animals once taken inside her will neither sour, decompose nor 
be digested until it arrives at a certain point where the gastric 
juices are released. Thus the head of a rabbit or squirrel may 
be completely digested and the midsection in a perfect state 
of preservation. It is at the lower end of the stomach, where 
the same tapers off to a point that the process of digestion is 
set in motion. 
I was on one of my many hunts with Uncle Dave once when 
he walked up boldly to a gopher hole, paused for a moment as 
though he had observed signs that the hole was inhabited by 
his enemy. He relieved himself of the burden of the crocus 
bag he was carrying, and as it fell upon the ground one sounded 
his rattles violently, followed instantly by a loud “his-s-s.” The 
old gentleman stepped a single pace backward, saying as he 
did so with absolute calmness: “I can’t hear their rattles any 
more, but I can hear ’em hiss.” He had thrown his bag squarely 
upon one in his coil, and at a distance of only three feet. In 
connection with this particular incident the old gentleman once 
made this distinction between the habits of the diamond-back 
