The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1921-08-25
THE HORN SNAKE.


tinct in South Carolina the incident
attracted quite lot of attention. The
Columbia State says the horn snake
IL harmless. and lin ian editorial in
which 1t took few good-humored
tabs at the glayers Of the snake, The
+ State says in part: THAT a creature
30 useful was killed is one of the
few things Incredible that has come
out OF Pickens." The Pickens Senti-
mel, holds, however, that the horn
snake is a deadly reptile and quotes
as follows from Logan's History OF
Upper South Carolina:
"Bertram met with a reptile which
he calls the horn snake in his travels
In >Carolina, and speaks of it as fol-
lows:
The pine or bull-snake is very
large and inoffensive, with respect to
mankind, but devours squirrels, bird,
rabbits and every other creature it
can take as food. They are the larg-
est snake yet known in North Amer
lea, except the rattlesnake, and per-
haps exceeds him in length; they are
pied black and white. They utter a
terrible loud, kissing, noise, sounding
very hollow, and like distant thun--
der, when irritated, or at the time of
incubation, when the males contend
"Swith one another for the desired fe-
male. These serpents are also called
horn-snakes, from their tail termina-
ting with hard, horny spur, which
they vibrate' very quickly when dis
turbed, but they never attempt TO-
strike with it. They have dens in the
earth, whittier they retreat precipi-
tally when apprehensive of danger.
Lawson, who traversed the same
region about seventy years. earlier
= than the botanist (Bertram,) de-
scribes another under the name of
the horn-snake serpent, Of totally
different character. OF the horn
snake, he says, L never saw but two
that I remember. They are like the
rattlesnake in color, but rather ligh-
ter They hiss exactly like a goose
when anything approaches them.
They strike at their enemy with
their tail, and kill whatevsoeever they
wound with it, which is armed at the
end with a horny substance like a.
cocks spur. This is their weapon. L
have heard it creditably reported, by
those who said they were eye witness
es. that small locust tree, about the
thickness of a mans arm, being
struck by one of these snakes at ten
O'Clock In the morning, then verdant
and flourishing, at four in the after
noon was dead, and the leaves red
and withering.. Doubtless, be it how
1t will, they are very venomous. I
think the Indians do not pretend to
cure their wound
This singular statement of the
old surveyor, in relation to the locust
tree, could scarcely have ever come
to the knowledge of the good, but
plain people living on Coronaka and
Wilson's creeks; yet there is still ex-
tant In that region tradition in
which it is related that many years
y 90 a man in the lower part of the
district or in Edgefield, being close
ly pursued by a horn snake, took
refuge behind a tree, when the en-
ranged serpent, rolling swiftly after
him like trundled hoop, plunged it's
horny sting deep into it's trunk, where
1t was made fast, and so diffused it's
venom into the circulating sap as to
destroy In few hours the vitality
of the tree.
"Bertram, with all his acuteness
and enthusiasm as a naturalist, has
certainly confounded the names Of
two distinct native serpents Of Caro-
lima. The bull snake, as he describes
1t, was well known in the upper coun-
try at the period of his visit and
long after; but the old people had
seen and talked much of the horn
snake as well, whose sting they dread
ed as the visitation of death. Hewitt
informs us that the horn snake was
found In Carolina and owed its name
not to horny excresence growing
upon its head, as some have suppos-
ed, but to the horn-like sting at the
extremity of its tail, with which it
defended itself, striking it with great
force into every aggressor. was
also deemed exceedingly venomous;
and the Indians when stung by it
did not resort to their usual anti
dotes, but instantly cut out the
wounded part as the only safe pre-
ventative of the deadly poison be-
ing infused through the system.
Mills, In his Statistics, enumerates,
among the indigenous reptiles of
Carolina, both the horn and butt
snake. The former, however, must
have been exceedingly rare; for at
a comparatively early period IL had
already become a creature of curl
GUS tradition. Lawson, 1t has been
observed, saw but two of them as
early as 1718. Notwithstanding no
white man of his day enjoyed bet
ter opportunities for making such
discoveries in Carolina. Among the
innumerable facts that may be gath
cred from natural history illustra-
tive of Gods goodness, there are
few more deserving of notice. than
this rareness of reptile so fierce
n