Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-01-02
SERPENT MIGRATION.
A Source of Profit tn One Man Who
Understands Their Movements.

From the Alton Sentinel Democrat.
Do snakes migrate? Perhaps this oues-
ton has never occurred to you. or If IL did
II is unlikely that You were interested in
IL. but there is more, perhaps. than Won
thought for in the answer to this query.
Yes, in rather loose sense snakes do
migrate-that is, they have certain hibsr-
Latihc quarters and make certain excur-
sions regularly every summer, and their
hves are just as systematic as those of any
other living thing. Their migrating habits
have long been known to naturaltsts and
the bluffs along the river afford a splendid
locality for illustration of what is known
as the snake migration. Just at this sea-
son of the year. when winter is coming on.
all the serpents in the Iowlands across
the river, on the islands and in the fields.
are making for the bluffs where they find
shelter and hibernate i'm the assures and
orevices during the cold season. and IL is
common thing to see a snake swimming
the Mississippi in the fall of the year al
ways going toward the hills.
Mr.. Louis Stirftz of Clifton Terrace who
has trequented the river along the Piasa
bluffs almost all his life. says he has seen
the time in the month of November when
you couldn't cross the river at Clifton in
the middle OF the day without seeing a
hair dozen snakes Swimming toward
the Illinois bluffs. and that he has often
Killed as many as four five rattlesnake s
with an oar while rowing from his place TO
Alton. These snakes lie in a comatose con-
dition in winter and just as soon as the
warm rays of a spring sun creep into the
rocks they crawl out, bask I'm the sun for a
few days and then slide down the shaleS
and of to the lowlands.
Last fall the writer was hunting along
the bluffs above Elsah when he had an ex-
perience that convinced him that snakes
really do migrate. He noticed an old man
wa L a m no rfk 80
ed to be intently watching something on
the water with a pair of field glasses His
actions excited curiosity and the hunter
climbed down the bluff and Joined the
man carried a heavy sack, a pair of field
glasses and a queer pair of long
wooden tongs, and when questioned renlied
that he was snake catcher. all the while
scanning the surface of the water with his
glass. In the course of ten minutes he
sighted game. which proved to be a snake
swimming for shore some 200 yards above
The old man Immediately picked up his
tongs and just as soon as the snake had
landed he grabbed him with the wooden
claws. The catch proved to be a black
snake and he was slowed away in the sack
For another hour he piled his trade. during
which time he caught four snakes-two
water snakes, one garter snake and a
spreading adder. The latter he nut i'm the
sack, liberating the others with the remark
that they were mo good" Those other
W.
for the writer appointed himself a COM
mittee to swat every one OF them on the
soft side of the head with the hard end of
an overgrown pebble.
The old man had waxed very genial by
this time and together with my comrade
VINO had just come up, We went up to the
house TO see his collection. He lived in n
little cabin boat, in a back room of which
he had over fifty live and kissing snakes
which, he said, he sold to a man in St
Louis, who sold them to different parties
for different uses. How did | learn the
trickg' said the snake hunter. Well sir
/ learned II when a boy. We used to live
on bluffs above and near the Wisconsin
line, and every fall the Indians would come
down from the reservation and catch rat
tlesnakes when they crossed the river
They sold the dead snakes to a man at the
fort and / learned the trick from the In
dams. Every fail the snakes take to the
bluffs. and they only swim the river when
the sun Is warmest in the middle of the
day. i used to catch them with a boat
like the Indians. but I've learned a trick
the reds didn't know. and that is that you
can catch more snakes along the shore
with one-half the work.