Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1898-01-08
The Story Telltr.
WAYS OF RATTLESNAKES.
Common Errors Regarding Their
Fighting Abilities.


Fighting Abilities.
New York Sun.
"Nobody was ever bitten by a 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.
1t isn'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 elas-
tic cartilage. Thus the snake has no
leverage whatever in closing one jaw
against the other, and if it attempted
to infict injury by biting, it couldn't
so much as pierce the skin. The fangs
of a rattlesnake are driven into the
flesh by 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 moth
ing to do with the act. A man strik-
ing boat hook into log is an exact
representation of the manner in which
the rattlesnake bites. So when any
one tells you about some one else being
bitten by rattlesnake, bet him it isn't
so. You'll win. It is an impossibility
for rattlesnake to bite.
"But, although the rattlesnake can't
bite, if you're fooling around in a
country where he is spending the sum-
mer, you want to keep your eye peel
ed. And there is one particular thing
you don't want to forget. 1t is COM
mon and widespread fallacy that a
rattlesnake is entirely harmless 80 long
as he is uncoiled. I believed that
once, and found out by startling per-
sonal experience that it wasn't so. 1t
is true that when a 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
bis full length, and with lightning-like
velocity. One day I dropped a big
stone on the head of big rattler that
lay in this position, crushing the head,
the stone lying partly on the head.
After gazing for sometime at the quiv-
ering reptile, so suddenly taken from
life, I stopped down to remove his
rattles. l 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 bur-
led, pulling out of the jaw and re-
naming in the sleeve as the snake fell
back to the ground. They had not
missed my cheek more than hairs
breadth. With precaution 1 have
made that test of a rattlesnake's ca
pacity of striking in that way mary
times since then, and the snake always
struck. The instinct is so strong in
this reptile that 1 have known rat
tier, two hours after its head was
severed from its body, to strike back
fiercely with its bleeding stump the
instant it's tail was touched.
"There is at least one case on rec
ord where this belief that rattle
snake couldn't strike until it was in
coil resulted fatally. The man was
working in his garden, when he dis
covered rattlesnake lying with only
its rattles and two or three inches of
its tail projecting from under the bot
tom rail of the fence on the side next
to him, the rest of the snake being on
the other side. The man, being una
BILE to give the snake blow that
would kill it while it was in that posi-
ton, 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
its 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 intent on deadly assault
is the coil. This is not always SYM
metrical spiral but the body is massed
in more or less regular folds, literally
an animate set spring. From this po-
sition the rattler can spring from one
half to two.thirds of his length. Be.
fore 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's reach, the snake has