Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1903-03-12

they are found almost everywhere
else, unless the increasing population
of a country has killed off the species.
! IN a general way the laity of the
world has nal a certain sense of pity
fol those geographical sections that
have been denied snakes among their
fauna. In the absence of these
reptiles one of the greatest incentives
to artistic lying is impossible. A man
largest fish will lie about snakes as
long as he can sit up. If there are
no snakes in his island, however, he
has got to hustle for his fiction.
1t is this mingling of truth and
fiction about reptiles that has made
the reputation of several seaside re-
sorts, and caused most people to
have nervous chils every time they
walk in grass that is up TO their shoe
tops.
AS a matter of fact, it is not an
easy matter for one to get bitten by
a poisonous snake in those countries
that make a specially of them. While
many poisonous species will not run
from man, most of them will get out
of his way if he moves slowly through
their haunts. Few of these venomous
snakes are found where the ordinary
person expects them. A man having
to cross a weedy ravne will race
through it with a chill chasing up his
spine, and stop GREATNESS on the
other bank were rattlesnake or a
coppernead may be coiled, summing
himself.
The naturalist has done a great
deal toward clearing up the fictions
that once masqueraded as facts re-
garding serpents. Time was when
nearly every hunter and woodsman
had seen the wonderful hoopsnake
which, when alarmed, seized its tail
in its mouth. bent into hoop form
and went rolling up and down hill
with the ease of an automobile tire.
The whipsnake was another freak
of the imagination, 1t was supposed
to represent the slender outlines of
the long, plated whip of the stage
driver, and its skin markings also
were supposed to carry out the decep-
ton until a man with worn whip
lash might easily get down from the
box to pick up one of these snakes
lying in the road.
The joint snake was another ac-
cepted myth. When struck with a
stick or stone it was supposed to fly
into minute sections, just as shat
tered icicle might do Then when
the aggressor was gone it was sup
posed that these pieces of the reptile,
urged by some unconscious attraction
head section, where they coupled in
order of place, and in comparatively
few minutes the reptile would move
off as if nothing had happened.
Not less exaggerated than these
are the stories of big" snakes that
once were peculiar to every rural
neighborhood. These fictions are
dying out. however. Scientists have
disputed that snakes forty feet long
and as big around the middle as a
beer key are possible to the tenn
perate regions of the United States
and they have stuck to the statement
until the rural Joe Mutation has had
to seek other fields of endeavor.
In the same way the sea serpent
hnnn from
Atlantic resorts twenty-five years ago
were of serpents seen off shore with
horrid heads twelve or fifteen feet
above the water and swimming
faster than an ocean liner. Affidavits
have been made to these sights.
Then the joke-writers took up the
subject Scientists disputed the idea
.or such monsters. Some of them
went on to acknowledge the excuse
for such stories by showing that
ducks or other waterfowl, swimming
in line, with sinuous waves running
under them, might easily give the
impression to a startled observer.
But today the sea serpent is
extinct The most credulous would
not go twenty-five miles to a resort
for the prospects of seeing one.
OF the snakes which do not belong
to the realms of fiction and strong
/ drink there are nearly 1,S00 species
classified Ly naturalists. The limit
of their distribution in Europe has
been fixed as south OF the fifty.fourth
degree in British Columbia; the
! fortieth parallel in the southern
hemisphere is fixed as the southern
limit.
! Within these confines these hun
dreds of varieties adapt themselves
to almost every condition of climate
food, and environment. Among these
species are the hurrowing snakes
which live almost wholly under the
ground, feeding off Invertebrates and
which universally are non-poisonous
the ground snakes which live almost
wholly on the ground, rarely taking
to the water or to bushes or trees;