The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-10-02

WAYS OF RATTLESNAKES.

WAYS OF RATTLESNAKES.
Common Errors Regarding Their Fight.
ing Abilities.
"Nobody was ever bitten by rat
tlesnake, and nobody ever will be, ("
said a man who has studied them.
"And the reason is the best that could
possibly be. A rattlesnake can't bite.
It ism t likely that any creature that
lives and is provided with teeth and
jaws has less power of biting. The
snakes jaws are not hinged. They
are attached to each other by an elias
tic cartilage. Thus the snake has no
leverage whatever in closing one jaw
against the other, and if it attempted
to inAict injury by biting, it couldn't
so much as pierce the skin. The
fangs of rattlesnake are driven into
the flesh by a stroke, not bite, as is
we'll shown by the fact that punctures
are made only by the armament of the
upper jaw. The lower jaw has nothing
to do with the act. A man striking a
boat hook into a log is an exact repre-
sentation of the manner in which the
rattlesnake bites. So whenever any
one tells you about some one else be-
ing bitten by rattlesnakc, bet him it
isn't so. You'll win. It is an
impossibility for rattlesnake to bite.
'But, although the rattlesnak can t
bite, if you're fooling around in a
country where he is spending the
summer, you want to keep your eye
peeled. And there is one particular
thing you don't want to forget. 1t is
a common and widespread fallacy that
rattlesnake is entirely harmless so
long as he is uncoiled. I believed
that once, and found out by startling
personal experience that it wasn't SO.
It is true that when rattlesnake is
stretched at full length with the mus
cles extended to the utmost, he could
not strike an inch forward, but from
that position he can strike backward
his full length, and with lightning
like velocity. One day: I dropped a
big stone on the head Of a big rattler
that lay in this position, crushing the
head, the stone laying partly on the
head. After gazing for some time at
the quivcring reptile, so suddenly
taken from life, stopped down to re-
move his rattles. I had no sooner
touched his tail than his mutilated
head flew back, and almost grazing my
cheek, struck the sleeve of my coat
Just below the shoulder, where both
fangs were buried, pulling out of the
jaw and remaining in the sleeve as the
snake fell back to the ground. They
had not missed my cheek by more
than a hairs breadth. With precau-
tion have made that test of rattle
snakes capacity of striking in that
way many times since then, and the
snake always struck. The instinct is
so strong in this reptile that have
known a rattler, two hours after its
head was severed from it's body, to
strike back 6ercely with it's bleeding
stump the instant it's tail was touched.
"There is at least one case on record
where this belief that a rattlesnake
couldn strike until it was in coil re-
suited fatally. The man was working
in his garden, when he discovered a
rattlesnake lying with only its rattles
and two or three inches of its tail pro-
jccting from under the bottom rail of
the fence on the side next to him, the
rest of the snake being on the other
side. The man, being unable to give
the snake a blow that would kill it
while it was in that position, thought
he would seize its rattles and pull it
quickly into full view and kill it with
his hoe. He crept up and seized the
rattles, but had no sooner touched
them than the rattlesnake doubled
back over the rail and sank it's fangs
in the hand that held its tail. The
man killed the snake and hurried to
the house, where he died in short
time.
"But the typical position Of the rat
tlesnake when intention deadly assault
ie the coil. This is not always sym
metrical spiral, but the body is massed
in more or less regular folds, literally
an inmate set spring. From this
nos;tion the ratt]er can spring from
one-half to two-thirds of his length.
Before the stroke the mouth is opened
wide, the fangs falling down from their
sockets in the upper jaw and standing
firmly in their position. The head is
thrust forward, the half coils below it
being Strengthened out to lengthen the
neck and to give power to the strike.
There is no preliminary motion. The
stab is made with abrupt swiftness
that defes escape Of the victim. There
is but one strike. The snake passes
back into its coil again with the same
swiftness that it threw itself out. As
the fangs enter the flesh the venom is
injected. If the thing struck at is be-
yond the rattler' reach, the snake has
the power of squirting its venom in
jets, which it can do for distance OF
four feet or more. DR.. Weir Mitchell
had narrow escape once. An i'm
mcnse diamond-back rattler he had in
his collection threw teaspoonful Of
it's venom in the doctor face from a
distance of four feet. It struck him
on the forehead. If it had fallen an
inch lower it would have entered his
eyes, certainly binding him and per-
haps killing him.
Sometimes rattlesnake loses its
fangs in the flesh Of the object it
strikes, but that does only Temporary
damage to the deadly armory. There
are plenty of incipient fangs lying in
the jaw, only waiting for chance like
that to come forward and be in line
for business. They grow very fast,
and in the course of two or three days
a rattlesnake that has lost it's fangs is