AMERICA’S UNCROWNED KING 
When the mists of the early dawn of creation hung like a 
pall over the earth the rattler was with us, secretive, vindic¬ 
tive, and sullen to be sure, but nonetheless undisputed ruler 
over a vast realm. Then, as now, there was not to be found 
among men or beasts one who dared challenge his right of 
thoroughfare. 
During that remote era he must have witnessed with disgust 
the eternal struggle in which his enemies of the human kind 
engaged solely for the sake of mastery, little realizing that 
whichever won he (the rattler) would still be king. The 
Mound Builders and the Cliff Dwellers suffered complete anni¬ 
hilation. The Eskimos saved themselves by retreating toward 
the Arctic Circle where the weather was so inhospitable that 
their enemies would not follow and offer further battle. This 
new influx of warlike adventurers who supposedly hailed from 
the plains of Mongolia soon declared themselves triumphant 
over all adversaries, yet the rattler sent no emisaries bearing 
white flags. 
Then came the white man, and with him a re-enactment of 
all the savagery of past ages. If this reptile had been endowed 
with sufficient wisdom to correctly interpret all that he wit¬ 
nessed, then there is little wonder that he absolutely declined 
to enter into a state of self-imposed exile merely to oblige these 
new conquerors. 
Uncle Dave knows full well that there is no creature on 
earth, sea, or air quite so deadly as a diamond-back rattler. 
Asia has its king cobra, Africa its black mamba, South America 
its bushmaster, and Australia its death adder, but the diamond- 
back rattler, because of its size and length, his terrifying ap¬ 
pearance, the amount of venom he injects, plus the ferocity of 
his attack, leaves him no close second among reptiles anywhere 
on earth, and fully justifies the title Uncle Dave has conferred 
upon him, “The most-to-be-shunned living reptile.” If any 
man had never before seen nor heard of such creature, and 
should suddenly come upon one, he would instinctively give 
him a wide berth. His intuition or instinctive nature, which- 
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