, 1896-03-17

peeling himself than IL he'd been 4
stick Of wood, but in the morning his
clothes would be lying in one corner Of
the cage. and he'd be as bright as an
old-fashioned patchwork quilt in his
new ones.
1T is the general impression that
when a rattlesnake is shedding his
skin he gets blind. There is no mis-
take that his eys do get covered with a
blush film at that time, and Just put a
mouse in his cage and see how quick
he'll coil up and hit it in the neck every
time. A rattlesnake always strikes for
the neck, and he always strikes his
prey before he eats it, but you NAV fill
his cage with rats or mice, or frogs, or
anything else he likes, and he will
never touch one of them unless he's
hungry. He kills only enough for one
meal, and when that is swallowed my
thing and everything that's left can
crawl over him, jump on him and tum-
BILE him around as much as he pleases.
and he will never say boo
THE rattlesnake is not a mean de
stroyer, Tor is he a glutton. Two mice
will make him an ample meal. l had
my pet rattlesnake ten months before
he ate a mouthful or drank a drop of
anything. A ratlesnake has been
known t O remain IS months in captiv-
ity without eating or drinking, and
then all of a sudden begin to find his
| appetite. When l put Jonah in a cage
at the end of 10 months | put a young
dove in with him. Now, there isn't
anything on earth or in the air that a
rattlesnake won't kill and eat IL it's
hungry, and"
Except bats, Abner," ipterrupted a
mountain ranch friend of the rattle
snake king, who had a before
dropped in for a short visit.
"Oh, yes, except bats" assented the
king. 81 put a bat in Jonah's cage
once, and l thought he'd 20 crazy. He
coiled himself up in n corner of his
cage, and actually hid his head. All
he'd do was to rattle. | thought the
snake would never get over the nery.
GUS shivers he had at the fright from
that bat. l was afraid the bat would
scare the snake to death. so I took II
out of the cage.
Yes, l u the dove in the cage with
Jonah, lust to see what he would do.
That dove lived with the snake for five
years. I've often seen it and Jonah
asleep together, sometimes the bird
perched on the snake and sometimes
wrapped up on his coil. It was an in
teresting sight and I wished a thou
sand times l had one of those photo
graph men up here at the cabin to see
the love between the serpent and the
dove. tell you. it was touching. and
visitors used to come and see the two
together.
AT the same time h a the dove and
Jonah we're living together so we'll the
snake was killing birds, mice, gophers
anu OlQeF tnlQRS TlRlt along as lIS ap-
petite called for. One day the dow got
its head through one of the meshes in
the woven wire of the Gag and before
it was discovered the poor bird was
choked to death like a pheasant in a
snare. I got another n so nearly like
the lead dove that no one could have
told them apart. When Jonah was
asleep l II the bird in the cage. The
snake woke I'D along in the afternoon.
He had hardly got his eyes open when
he sprang at that dove like a fash of
lightning and mad his sumner of of her.
He knew h wasn't his old friend that
died. No. YOU can't tell me that rattle
snakes are always mean and cussed.
They have their affection the same as
other brutes, but they have been hunt
cd and despised by the whole human
race for hundreds of years, SO that they
have become mad and unreliable about
all the time.
There is no telling how long an ami
NAL will live after being struck by a
ratt,esnake. and 1t NAV not die at all.
I have known a rat to die within six
minutes after Jonah had set his fangs
in his neck. and l have known me,