Arizona republican., 1907-07-03
STUDIES IN NATURE
 RATTLESNAkE LORE
E. E. Kirkland Explains Why Some People Don't Do What They Think
 They Do, When They Know They
 Ought to.

Territorial Treasurer E. E. Kirkland. who first won a name for himself as
 horny handed rancher and COW man
 up in Kirkland valley. still keeps his
 mountain home as a good place to fall
 back on when he becomes old and de- | crepit, tearing coupons off the terri
 torial bonds. and goes up there occa- sionally 10 keep in touch with local affairs. He went up last Saturday and spent Sunday with the boys on
 the ranch, coming home with a hand
 badly lacerated. which he said was the result of rattlesnake bite inflicted by proxy, and it looked the part.
 Mir. Kirkland has a barn on the ranch which has been there for great many years and which is used mainly for the accommodation of the COW ponies and the 'rattlesnakes on the home place who seek it's shelter in the winter time from the cold and in the summer time from the heat. Mir. Kirklands usual custom when he goes to the ranch is to pick up a club. step inside the barn and kill a snake and then go around and greet the ponies. calling them by name and batting
 
 urday except that when he went into the barn he saw no snake and was somewhat disappointed. He began to fear that the boys on the ranch were becoming inhospitable or that his rep tile friends had succumbed to race suicide, but he went the rounds as usual and was preparing to leave the barn when he spied a little boys sad dle on a nail and decided to bring it to Phoenix and make some lad a pres ent of it.
 As he approached the saddle and reached up he heard the old familiar greeting of a husky rattler at his feet and came to a sudden stop. with cold chill running up and down a spinal column that connected his main system with a brow showing d fever heat of 150 degrees. He soon came out of his trance, got piece of board out side and after a quite strenuous com bat dispatched the snake, but the rag ged edge of the board left wounds on his hand very like the effect of a ser pents fangs.
 The most interesting part of the in- cident is the observation of MT. Kirk | land concerning the suddenness with | which he halted when he heard the | snake rattle. This is enlarged upon | for the benefit of those who are fol- | lowing the nature studies of certain ! great men of the day. the subject in this instance being the human ani- nal. MT. Kirkland says 1t is a com mon thing to hear people tell about | making a sudden jump as soon as they hear a snake rattle. when the | fact is that the first thing a person | does on hearing rattler is to come to a sudden stop. look around a mo- ment. enjoy a mass meeting of varie gated pains and cold chills, size up the and then jump. Of course this pause is not necessarily length ened into a state of oblivious forget nevertheless it is more pro- than one would suppose un less he were in the habit of intimate with rattlesnakes as MT. is, and had learned to study i himself under such circumstances.
 The explanation. says MT. Kirkland. II Is found in two or three facts. First I Is surprise. but it only takes an in i stant for one to realize that it is a | rattler whether he ever saw one be- I Ore or not. Mother Natura somehow rave a white man an instinct for rec ,grizing and understanding the re- marks of a rattler, without needing Il