, 1889-05-10
TARsoms SNAKE KILLING sow.
Its Fat Cheeks Turned to Receive n Rat
tiers Venomous FanEs.

- ~ @-NNAN@ 0
tiers Venomous FanEs.
Moodna is a low lying, u~nattractiye
settlement, rather thickly inhabited,
on the Middletown branch OF the
West Shore railroad, a little above
Cornwall and not more than a quar-
ter of n mile below the secluded glen
called Paradise. The river that waters
Paradise flows darkly through Mood
ma, but it is a limpid, sparkling stream
at the upper point and little better
than q cesspool at the lower one.
Paradise both on account of its re-
markable beauty and the difficulty of
getting TO it is well named. Moodna
may be said to be the very antithesis
of Paradise. There is no trail of the
serpent in Paradise, but Moodna is
rich in snakes, and would have a still
greater wealth of them were it not for
the untiring efforts of Mr.. Sam Tar
sons sow. She kills the reptiles and,
though her appetite at the swill tub is
unimpaired, she eats snakes with
great gusto, and leaves nothing but
the bones behind. For reasons known
only to herself, she picks off the flesh
OF her prey, and eschews the osseous
portions. Moodna is proud OF Tarson's
SOW, and tho surrounding hamlets
would like to borrow her when snakes
multiply too rapidly; but she has all
tho work she a attend TO at home.
Of course, most of the snakes that
infest Moodna are comparatively
harmless, and the sturdy SOW fearlessly
casts her 400 pounds of adipose matter
upon them, and regardless of their
bites, stamps and gnaws their lives
out. Tho adjacent mountain Of Storm
King, however, has many recesses
that are the homes of rattlesnakes.
With the first breath of spring they
emerge hungry, venomous and very
wicked, and larson, aided by old Zach
Archer, the professional snake catcher,
secured n large one, and determined TO
test the power of his pet us it had
never before been tried.
He led the SOW into the barn, where
a soap box containing the snake had
been placed upon the floor. Then he
climbed upon rafter, 50 as to BIO quito
harms way, and, by pulling a string,
raised adoor which he had made in the
boz. Instantly the snake glided out,
and at once saw the SOW. 1t threw
itself into a coil, its eyes glittered, it
Missed viciously, and it was ready and
eager for battle. The SOW also saw the
snake, as her subsequent actions indi-
Gated; but it is doubtful If the reptile
saw that she saw it." for no pig I'M
dergoing the process of fattening in
the hog pen ever seemed moro guile
less than did she as she trotted around
tho barn, apparently in search of a
bad potato or n rotten apple. She was
narrowing the circle, however, and
each revolution brought her nearer
TO her hereditary enemy.
At last she stopped moving, and
looked straight at the snake. Quick
rs a lightning flash the reptile struck
at her, but the SOW knew her business.
With equal celebrity she turned her
head half around, and tho poisonous
fangs sank into her left check. For a
moment the snake writhed around tho
sow's snout, and she tried to seize it,
but it dropped TO the ground I'M
harmed, and, with amazing rapidity,
resumed its coil. The sow seemed TO Be
c~hagrined. She advanced a step, and
as tho snake struck fiercely at her for
the second time she obcycd tho Script
ural mandate, and, having been smit-
ten on n check, she turned the other
to her assailant. She changed her tao
tics on this occasion, and did not at
tempt to bite the snake while it main
tanned its hold; but the instant it
dropped she pounced upon it, and
~grasping it by the neck she pinned its
ugly head TO the ground and played n
tattoo upon its body with her feet.
She was not materially injured by the
bites she had received, for the venom
wasted itself in the thick layers of fat
that underlined her checks, and ii
could not reach any vital part Of her
anatomy. Tho snake was soon dead,
and Mr.. larson clambered down from
the r%after, hoping to secure the body
as a trophy of his pets victory; but
tho SOW was in no mood to brood inter
ference. She felt that to the victor be
longed the spoils, and her blood being
up, and n little of it running from each
check, she drove her owner from the
barn. Whom he returned fifteen min
utes later she was in a moro amicable
frame of mind, and she had made a
skeleton of the snake as skillfully as
If the job had been done by n taxider-
mist. New York Sun.
Tho Later Dow Theory.
II -. 1900 ILL ILL., - IL -