The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-08-08

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he managed, with the sense of a wrest-
Ter, to wriggle and twist in such a way
that he defeated the kingsnake in his
effort. l had noticed, while the snakes
were resting, that the RATHER was
nearly two feet longer than the king
snake, and, knowing that the latter had
attacked the former for the express
purpose of making a meal on him, I
wondered at his nerve.
1.-The two snakes tossed and tumbled
and writhed together for ten minutes,
and then that round came to an end.
During all this struggle the kingsnake
kept his jaws fast in the rattler's neck.
He never let up a particle on that. AS
they lay on the ground at the end of
that round-the second one I had e !;
L don't know how many more they had
Fought took a long stick I was using
as a cane, and running one end of it
under the kingsnake's lower jaw,
where he was fastened to the RATHER, I
lifted the two snakes from the ground.
They simply writhed and wriggled
their long bodies, and finally wound
them about the stick. Ny friends
ranch was near by, and 1 carried the
snakes there and put them on the floor
of a small room in his house. AS soon
as 1 put them down they resumed the
fight, the kiDgsnake retaining his ten
acious hold on the RATHER, the struggle
being the efforts of the n to enfold
the other in his coils, and of the other
to prevent it. If the RATHER could have
broken the hold Of the kingsnake's jaws
on his neck, I haven't the least doubt
that this record of kingsnake and rat
tlesnake fight would have been broken,
for the RATHER would have won. But
he couldn't do it.
"And SO the combat went on, each
round lasting from five to ten minutes,
from the time I discovered the two
snakes until II o'clock at night. Then,
at the end Of a particularly foreground,
my friend and I, who had watched the
fight without leaving it a minute, were
surprised to e the kingsnake let go
his hold on the RATHER and crawl to
n corner of the room. But he knew
what he was doing. The rattlesnake
had given up, He had to. He was as
dead as a stone.
81 know these two snakes had been
fighting eleven hours. If the king,
snake had turned over and died after
all that l would have thought no less
Of him. But he didn't. He had started
in to have a meal on that rattlesnake,
and he still proposed having it. He
lay in the corner Of the room perhaps
twenty minutes, and then, without
noticing my friend and myself, glided
out toward the dead RATHER. He went
up to it confidently, and beginning at
the head, licked it's body down on n
side clear to the tail, and we could see
a thick oily substance deposited on the
scales of the dead reptile. Having
fabricated one side, the kingsnake re-
turned to the head again, and licked
the body all the way down on the other
side. Then going back to the head the
kingsnake threw open his jaws, and
without any ceremony began to swal-
low his late antagonist, though the
RATHER was almost two feet longer than
himself and three inches bigger around.
This was too interesting a process to
miss, and we made a night of it watch
ing it. I am unable to say how that
kingsnake put that RATHER, so much
bigger than himself, inside Of himself,
but by eight o'clock in the morning the
last bit of the rattlesnake had been
forced into the kingsnake's stomach.
But the kingsnake was a sight! He
was about the shape Of toad fish, and
after the process of gorging was over
he seemed to be, and we thought he
was, as dead as the snake he had swal-
lowed. But we let him lie. In a week
he began to get smaller, and in three
weeks he was upaand about, evidently
looking for a chance at another RATHER.
So we turned him out of the house and
he went gliding out on the prairie with
fire in his eye, and I pity the first rat
tlesnake he sighted. IN Y. San.
ONLY A LITTLE TIME.