The Arizona sentinel., 1889-10-05
TALK ABOUT REPTILES.
True Tales Manufactured for the
Occasion.
RattlesnaEes do Not Cultivate the Ac-
quaintance of Garter Snakes-The
Astonishing Hypnotic Powers
of Dead Serpent.

''If you should happen to see a gar
ter snake, one of the most innocent
and harmless things that live, going
along road in one direction, and a
rattlesnake, one Of the deadliest of
reptiles, travelling on the same road
toward the garter snake, and one Of
those snakes had to turn out for the
other, which one of them do you sup
pose would keep the right of way?"
Simon Kent, the snake professor of
Clinton County, made that inquiry,
and the reporter promptly replied:
The rattlesnake would insist on
keeping the road. of course"
That's what every body thinks"
said Prof. Kent, land that's just where
they are mistaken. Now, instead of
the rattlesnake keeping right on and
the garter snake getting out of the
way of the terrible reptile, he will not
only give the right OF the way to the
harmless snake, but will do it in
double-ouick time, and slide off into
the bushes and never stop until he
gets to safe place of hiding. But if
instead of the garter snake it was
copperheard, or any other serpent as
deadly as the rattler himself, the
rattlesnake would keep right
on, and the two reptiles, each
with poison enough in his jaws to kill
three men, would pass one another
quietly, or may be stop for a moment
and have little contab together. One
of the funniest things in nature is that
venomOus snakes never fight with each
other, and seem to have no particular
grudge against any of the non-venom-
Gus snakes. But snakes that carry no
poison at all, and have no more power
to harm than lies in their capacity to
capture their food, are aggressive and
unrelenting enemies of the poison
snakes, and the latter live in deadly
terror of them. A rattlesnake will go
ten miles out of the way rather than
meet a garter snake, although the rat
tier might be big enough to swallow it
and its whole family at one gulp.
''The sight of blacksnake simply
throws rattler or a copperhead into
fits at once. He knows he will have
10 fight, and he knows that he is sure
to get licked. But venomous snakes
will help one another in rows of this
kind. When rattler sounds his cry
of distress on his rattles every rattle
snake and copperhead within hearing
will hurry to his aid. One black
snake, though, is more than a match
for half dozen rattlesnakes and cop
perheads, for he is as much quicker
than they are as a trotting horse
is quicker than an OK team. l
once saw six-foot black
snake tackle big rattle
snake, and the rattler's signal brought
four other rattlesnakes and three cop
per heads to his aid from different di-
rections. But they might better have
remained away, for it didn't take the
blacksnake more than six minutes to
do the whole lot of them. He seemed
TO dive and dart in and out and around
those rattling and kissing poison ped
dlers like zig-zag streak of lightning
among some clouds. 1t was just a
whizz, a twist and a crunch, and that
head every time.
The fight was so exciting that be-
fore | knew it | had worked my way
from behind the bushes where / first
saw the fight to within couple of yards
of the fighters, and when the black
snake had finished the lot his eyes fell
on me, and interpreting my presence
there to mean that l wanted piece of
the fight, too, he slid at me with the
evident determination to do me up as
he had the snakes. Before l could
move he had himself wrapped around
both of my legs, and was working his
way upward with arapidity that would
have put my windpipe at his disposal
in five seconds more, but l made grab
and caught him around the neck with
both hands, and closing on him with
all my strength choked Mr. Snakes
tongue out till it hung down five inches
and his eyes popped out On his cheeks.
The blacksnake was glad enough to
quit, but held on to his throat until
he was as dead as the snakes he had
been having his picnic with.
HE was the incest specimen but
one that / had ever captured of his
kind. That one gathered in few
minutes after killing the first one.
was carrying my prize home, and in
getting over a stone wall happened to
look back over my shoulder, About