The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-05-26
California RattIesnakes,

plains, the other the snake of thu
mountains. The plain snake is short
plethoric-looks much like an animated
bologna-sausage, and is almost a:
deadly. In summer they congregate
in squads about the pools of water
Snakes love water and will travel miles
to get it. The plain snake crawlS into
grass when mown for hay, and is some
times taken up with bunch by the
fork and pitched rafting on the hay
wagon. This makes it lively for the
man on the wagon, and makes hay
making in certain parts of California
much more of sensational and much
less of poetical calling than in some
other parts of the world.
If there is an excuse for ones drink
ing anything but water it is when
caught out on these rattlesnake plains
in August and with the kind of water
there furnished. The sun bakes the
soil as hard as brickbat and quite as
dry. At intervals of ten miles you may
find pool. You may find it on the
north side of sandstone or cement
gravel cliff. There will be two inches
of water, one inch of scum and six
inches of mud, all about churned by
the feet of hundreds of cattle, and as
you make for this lukewarm mess YOU
will see half-dozen bologna-sausage
rattlesnakes gliding through the dead
yellow grass for the crevices in the
base of the cliff. The water itself is
the color of coffee without milk, and
holds six different kinds of aquatic bugs
and worms to the square inch. You
can stock an aquarium with every
swallow. 1t is meat and drink. Dore
missed it in having never seen one of
these pools in the summer fringed with
bologna rattlesnakes.
1t is said that the rattlesnake of the
plains lives in the same hole with the
little burrowing owl. If you walk in
circle around one of these owls perched
on the dirt pile by his hole, his head
will seem to turn clear round while he
watches you, as if it went on pivot,
and nine times out of ten you will fail
to see when he whizzes his neck back
to catch you on the other tack, so quick
is he with this motion. Whether or
not the rattlesnake and the owl do live
together in these holes is not clear. No
one has thoroughly proved it. No one
can well prove it without putting an
arm down to find out, and no one would
so disturb the privacy and sanctity of
the rattlesnakes' or burrowing owls
hearth. Nor is it clear who makes these
holes; no one ever saw burrowing owl
at work shoveling out the sand. Nor a
rattlesnake. My own opinion is that
the ground-squirrel or gophers make
the holes, that the owl, finding one I'M
occupied, squats in it, and that the snake
takes refuge in them when pursued
The mountain rattlesnake is much
longer than the plain snake, much bet
ter proportional and would readily be
deemed more beautiful reptile if man
could see any beauty in rattlesnake.
He tapers from the waist to the tail in
accordance with the strictest canons of
art, carries more rattles than his broth
ers of the low counties, glides in more
graceful curves, drinks purer water
from the clear, ice-cold springs of the
upper Sierras, and seems in every re-
spect a more aesthetic distributor of
venom. With all the talk, past and
present, of the rattlesnake's ''deadly
poison / never could hunt to its hole
a Northumberland case of death by
it. This is not from any lack of snake
stories or of snake deaths, and many of
these stories have / heard, but in every
case | found the narrator told what he
had heard and not what he had seen. l
was with a man on Red Mountain Bar
who was bitten by rattlesnake, but it
was the rattlesnake that died, being
stoned to death. The man lived, got
drunk, got well of the bite by getting
drunk, but sick at the stomach from the
same cause, and before his medicine had
ceased its operation he came near kill
ing brother man.
The generally accredited cure for the
rattlesnake's bite is whisky-as full as
possible. Many people in California
were so afraid of the bite that they
kept full most of the time as a pro-
phylactic or preventive. Hence the
remedy has killed far more than the
snake. This makes no difference. They
still go on with their prophylactic.
Another cure for the rattlesnake bite is
to bury all of the bitten man in the
earth but his head. The earth is sup
posed to have a quality which draws
the poison from the wound. If the
man is bitten in the head he must, of
course, be buried head downward
Where the rattlesnake goes to die, or
what he dies of, or where he goes after
he dies, are all mysteries. Despite all
the digging in California, no one ever
excavated a rattlesnake that had died
peacefully in its bed.
The nearer you are to country full
of rattlesnakes the less they are talked
about OF feared. Where the rattle
snake is most dreaded is where he is
not, or ever has been, or probably never
will be. He is game snake. He will
turn and make a fight, no matter how
great the odds against him. If he is
cut in two he will continue the fight
with what's left of him forward. If
you chop that in two he will keep UP
the battle with his fore-quarter. You
can't "knock him outn till you smash
his head; and even then the last inn
provised tail will squirm. The only
foolish thing he does is to bite at
stick and throw SO much of his poison
away on it. He seems to have no dis
elimination in the use of his poison,
just like some people who bite at every
thing that comes in their way with their
tAN