The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-09
SNAKES FOR MARKETS
THERE IS A STEADY DEMAND
 FOR vENoMoUS REPTILES.
Rattlers in Condition Find Ready Sale at Twenty Dollars--Swamps of the South Prolific. of
 Fine Specimens.

Fine Specimens.
 Brooklyn Eagle.
 Snakes are increasing rapidly in value. A few years ago diamond backed rattlesnake would not have brought cents from any dealer in reptiles. Today a good-sized rattle snake is worth s20 at least. Twenty five dollars would be paid by public geological garden or by a physician in terested in snake toxins.
 Hundreds of physicians in the United States today make speciality or studying the poisons secreted by the four venomous snakes of this country. They compare the effects of these poisons upon the human system with the effects of the toxins produced by the bacilli of various diseases. In this manner they hope to discover not only an antidote for snake bite. but an antitoxin for swamp levers and dozens of other ills that flesh Is heir to.
 This demand for American snakes has produced corresponding activity in the business of snake-hunting. The Smithsonian Institution at Washington is continually on the alert for rare specimens The Bronx zoo recently sent a snake-stalling expedition to South Carolina, under the lead of R. l.. Ditmars. MT. Ditmars will soon start south on a second snake-hunting trip. Dr. Weir Mitchell. the author and scientist, is one of the best known students of snake toxins. It is said tha the sometimes has as many as l,0O0 snakes in his laboratory.
 For various reasons poisonous snakes I SEr 1A IV1f rN than they were at one time. Still there are enough to make things interesting in many localities. In western Texas ranchers' families living in sod huts look under the bed daily for prairie rattlers and only sleep secure under a mosquito net canopy.
 Their bites Are Fatal. The poisonous snakes of the United States are the rattler, copperheadI moccasin and coral snake. The first .hree belong all to the same family the cratalidae-and their poisons, so far as known. are familiar. The coral, or harlequin, snake is found only in the south and it's venom very much resembles that of the deadly East h. dian cobra. He is brightly banded, small, harmless-looking, but very Vlci- ous. No certain remedy Is known for the bite of any of these snakes. Whisky and strychnine given in doses large enough often to produce convul- sions are usually most effective. Very much depends upon the constitution of the person bitten and upon the portion of the body that the snakes fangs strike. In general nine-tenths of the persons bitten by these snakes die. All this goes to prove, of course, that snake hunting is real sport, inas- much as the hunted sometimes gets back at the hunter
 For persons who enjoy snake stalking said R. l.. Ditmars of the Bronx zoo. T can recommend Jcertaln parts of South Carolina above any other section of the United States. For example. four-mile swamp near the little town of Robertsville. in Hamp- ton county, is a snakes paradise. There be the snakes of the South and the snakes of the North, every creep ing thing is in the sands or the sea for numbers. Portions of the swamp i are overgroWn with huge rushes and portions with canebrake dovetailing in- to nine sWampS, the trees running up fifty feet to the first limb and hung thick with sage green moss. Under foot is a bog alternating with sllmy pools l and treacherous morasses.
 Snake e-hunting Is as fascinating as deer stalking-especially to man who finds some meaning in every band on a pit Viper's back. No moose was ever more ready to take alarm than are these slippery quarries, and to land a bag full of valuable snakes is a task that calls for adroitness mingled with high quality of perseverance. When to Catch Snakes.
 Night is the very best time for catch | ing snakes, for it is then that the ser pent tribes uncoi themselves and glide hissing about the swamp in perfect | freedom. Obviously this sort of thing is not without danger, and after one
 trial of it the snake hunter prefers daylight In the moonlight a haze | floats above the swamp and it lies like a silvery sea. Within it the pines are | ghosts whose long boards sweep the poools. diamond backed rattlers rear | their ugly heads, racers, moccasins and | strange pink water snakes glide noise lessly and alligators keep up their loud uncanny believing. The air is heavy with the musky odor of serpents. In daylight the hunter rides in mounted on a mule usually and clad | in an armor of heavy brown duck, high | top boots and stout flexible gloves. His
 weapons are a bamboo stick with a running moose of fine copper wire at with a wire net. He always carries revolver. too, if he is wise.
 Across the mules neck is balanced short cane stick and from each end of the stick dangles a good-sized cotton bag These bags are for the snakes, and if a score of the squirming things are turned loose in each bag before the hunt is over it is all the same to the mule. Like Achilles, the mule has one vulnerable point, in his heel, but snakes are nearly always too busy to go nos | ing about a mules heels The mule sagaciously picks his way through the swamp along deer paths which wind in l and out, where single misstep would