The Russellville Democrat., 1889-09-19
---< - THE RATTLESNAkE.
How It's Deadly Blows Are Delivered and
 Its Venom Injected.

How It's Deadly Blows Arc Delivered and It's Venom Injected.
 Let us observe what happens when the rattlesnake means mischief He throws himself into spiral, and about I one-third of his length. carrying the l head, rises from the coil and stands | upright. The attitude is fine and war | like, and artists who attempt to por- tray it always fail. He does not pur- sue, he waits Little animals he scorns
 unless he is hungry. so that the mouse | or the toad he leaves for days unnoticed
 in his cage. Larger or noisy creatures alarm him. Then his head and neck are thrown far back, his mouth is opened very wide, the fang held firmly | erect, and with an abrupt swiftness, l for which his ordinary motions pre- pare one but little, he strikes once and is back on guard again, vigilant and l brave The blow is stab, and is given by throwing the head forward while the half-coils below it are strengthened out to lengthen the neck
 and give power to the motions which
 drive the fangs into the opponents flesh; as they center, the temporal | muscle closes the lower jaw on the part struck, and thus forces the sharp fang deeper in. It is thrust aided by bite. At this moment the poison duct is opened by the relaxation of the muscle which surrounds it. and the same muscle which shuts the jaw squeezes the gland, and drives its venom through the duet and hollow fang into the bitten part
 In so complicated a series of acts there is often failure. The tooth strikes on tough skin and doubles back or fails to enter. or the serpent mis- judges distance and falls short and may squirt the venom four or five feet in the air, doing no harm. l had curious experience of this kind in which a snake eight feet six inches
 long threw a teaspoonful or more of
 poison athwart my forehead It missed
 my eyes by an inch or two. l have
 had many near escapes, but this was
 the grimmest of all. An inch lower
 would have cost me my sight and
 probably my life
 A snake will turn and strike rom any posture. but the coil is the atti-
 tude always assumed when possible. The coil acts as an anchor and en- ables the animal to shake its fangs loose from the wound A snake can
 rarely strike beyond half its length. If both fangs enter, the hurt is doubly | dangerous, because the dose of venom Is doubled At times fang is left in the | flesh, but this does not trouble the ser
 pent's powers as n poisoner, since num-
 berless teeth lie ready to become firm
 ly fixed in its place, and both fangs arc
 never lost to gcthcr. The nervous mechanism which controls the act of
 striking seems to be in the spinal cord, | for if we cut of a snakes head and
 then pinch its tail. the stump of the
 neck returns and with some ac- | curacy hits the hand of the eX- | perimenter- if he has the nerve to | hold on. Few mon have l have not. | A little Irisbman who took care of my 1 laboratory astonished me by coolly sus- J laining this test He did it by closing
 his eyes and so shutting out for mo-
 ment the too suggestive view of the re- turning stump. Snakes have always
 seemed to me averse to striking, and
 they have been on the whole much
 maligned
 Any cool, quiet person moving slow
 ly and steadily may pick up and
 handle gently most venomous serpents. | | fancy, however. that the vipers and
 the coppeEheads are uncertain pets.
 Mr. Thompson, tho snake keeper at
 the Philadelphia Geological, handles
 his serpents with impunity; but one
 day, having dropped some little moe
 casins few days old down his sleeve while he carried their mamma in his hand, one Of the babies bit him and
 made an ugly wound. At present the 1 snake staff is used to handle snakes. | 1 saw one October, in Tangiers, what
 I had long desired to observe-a snake
 charmer Most oF his snakes were
 harmless; but he refused, with we'll
 acted horror, to permit me to take
 hold of them. He had also two large
 brown vipers; these he handled with
 care, but l saw at once that they were kept exhausted Of their venom by hay ing been daily leased into biting on
 bundle of rags tied to a stick. They
 were too tired to be dangerous, l have
 often seen snakes in this state. After
 three or four fruitless acts of instinct
 i've use of their venom they give up,
 and seem to become indifferent to ap-
 breaches, and even to rough handling. | -Dr G. Weir Mitchell, in Century. |