The Press., 1886-07-29

each of Ifhe two cimetaT like fangs, that the slightest pressure-such as any bite would cause--would make the fluid fy out, and through crease along the fang, to it's needle-hke point. It is one of Ma lures arrangements that. surpass the most. ingenious perfection of art
 This particular snake had with another, not less in size, repeatedly bitten, the pre- vious afternoon, miserable Florida pig, in the hind leg aud on the flank, in an eK- bibition given to demonstrate the superi- ority of the hog in such an encounter-and the Iig, though he failed to fight. and thus disappointed the eager crowd that had prodded him on, tried to make him attack the snake, never seemed to suffer, any moro than did an alligator thht was next tried, from the effects of these powar.- full bites though they made him, each time as he ran by the snakes, give quick, short kick and squeal, when bitten.
 The alligator, huge, lumbering fellow, paid no attention to the rattlesnakes, even when bitten, as he was repeatedly-his dry, dirty brown hide showing, each time, by the two little streams of poison triclkIinR down from the point of impact of each fang, by the width between them, the great size and spread of the serpents jaw. Even when one snake bit him in his open mouth, at the roots of his tongue, and got fastened there (the alligator's tongue is fastened all the way to the tip). the stupid beast merely closed his great jaws slowly thus driving the fangs deeper into his flesh, while he also crushed the serpentB head. Next day he did not seem any the worse for it-nor did the pig. i I,ig ,l. .
 The rattlesnake, like other yenomous serpents, will eat nothing he does not kill. Mo- sa sA Ny. t,,. aN ,f ten. In confinement he has been known to go six months without meal. But he kills more, and eats more, in hot weather -the time of his activity-than at other times, and, north of the Carolinas at least, he eats apparently nothing during the winter remaining torpid, in hidden holes and lodges. He is extremely cold-blood- ed, even in summer, and at times likes the hot sun. ..-... s
 He is also instiuctively conscious of his own deadly power. In the glassy glare of that motionless, hard, vitreous, slightly yellowish eye, there is neither pity nor mercy. The color-marking, that runs along the side of his head, also passes through that merciless eye, and divides, as to color, its upper from its lower half--the latter being the darker, but neither dark, The law which created him, more merciful than the creature, gave him that strange ap- bondage at the tail, which, when he obeys the equally strange impulse to warn his foe of the impending stroke, produces that sharp, peculiar, buzzing TGttte, which, once heard, is never forgotten, and which gives to this formidable serpent his dis tinctive name. This impulse to warn be- fore striking-a kind of knightly, chiyalric fairness, of which the rattlesnake's seems T.. AI. n.Nsx ss. parently as unavoidable as it is difficult to resist yet he does not dIt0dgs sound that alarm note just before striking. In unfa- vorable positions, emergencies which give him no time or room to fling himself into the coil, he will bite without rattling. A man who in 1855 was exhibiting in this city a number of rattlesnakes in long, narrow, glass-covered box, was bitten sev- eral times, on the hand or bare arm, without any warming, on occasions when, in trying to feed his interesting pets, he had Intentionally opened a glass slide at one end of the box 10 introduce a mouse or frog, supposing from a too nasty glance through the top, that their heads were all at the other end. His hand and arm bore fearful testimony, in the form o6 livid, ugly Impressions, still remaining, years after the bites, to show where the living tissue had decomposed and sloughed of. But his life was spared. .'
 "What saved you ?" ... ... a
 "Thts," he answered, producing from q pocket & six-ounce vial nearly full of an al- most black looking liquid. "ThiS! never go without it.. af
 s'What is it P' -5,f fI.rt.
 "It is a compound made myself-and it does the business 1"
 "How do you use itP-outside or in- side ?"
 Both Land in hurry. too | drink it, and I rub it on the bite" ~. .g..E a.r.H The reporter obtained the names of the ingredients of this compound, and-as he has always believed-published them in the Times but an examination of the old files of the paper, for the autumn of '55, fails to show it. The only clements of the mixture that he now remembers, was the bark of the white ash tree, and this was doubtless the most important, as it is known that the white ash sickens and quells the rattlesnake. Whatever the mixture may have been, it was boiled down to it's ut. tnast strength, till it became very dark in colox 't........
 The rattlesnake's knowledge of his dread power extends even to a knowledge that by biting himself he can at any time commit suicide O desperate act winch this snake has repeatedly been known actually to resort to, when so placed, for purposes of mere cruelty, preceding killing, within a circle of fire-or, more dreaded still, a circle of white ash branches--as to render escape impossible. He knows, too, the ef- feet of his bite on other creatures, man in cluded and, while commonly not aggres. sive, or wantonly seeking a chance to bite person, he is quite as apt to use his ter. rible weapon as to flee, if a person ignoF. antly or Intentionally gets too near Aud he knows just how and where to use it
 he always inficts his bite-which is de, livered with the suddenness and swiftnesf of flash of Gghtning-on some exposed part, as the bare hand, or foot, or ankle,-- and never, when such exposed part can be reached, does he attempt to strike through the victims clothing, since he knows, as by some instinct, that this, by interceptinl most of the venom, might prevent the ia tai effect at which he aims. i0l f'a-
 The rattlesnake is one of the vipers
 that is, it extrudes no egg, out of which
 the young are matched, as so many kindt of serpenti are, but it is viyipAr rons-I rather ovo-viyiparous, for the egg is re tained till the young is matched, and. th, little snake is born into the world alive 1 Only two inches long, and not larger thai some large earthworrns, the vicious young