The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1921-09-08
HORNED SNAKES.
Pickens Sentinel Gathers Information
About Reptiles.

parties whom we believe can furnish
us with more facts of interest IN the
meantime we are printing the follow
ing interesting accounts taken from
Logan's History of Upper South Caro-
lima:
"Logan's History of Upper South
Carolina, in speaking of the snakes OF
this section, says:
"Bertram met with a reptile which
he calls the horn snake in his travels
in Carolina and speaks of it as fol-
lows:
1.-The pine or bull-snake is very
large and inoffensive, with respect to
mankind, but devours squirrels, birds,
rabbits, and every other creature it
can take as food. They are the largest
snake yet known in North America,
except the rattlesnake, and perhaps
exceeds him in length; they are pied
black and white. They utter terri
BILE loud, Kissing noise, sounding very
hollow and like distant thunder, when
irritated, or at the time of incubation,
when the males contend with one an
another for the desired female. These
serpents are also called horn-snakes
from their tail terminating with
hard, horn spur, which they vibrate
very quickly when disturbed, but they
never attempt to strike with it. They
have dens in the earth, whittier they
retreat precipitately when apprehen-
sive of danger
Lawson, who traversed the same
region about seventy years earlier
than the botanist (Betram), describes
another under the name of horn
snake serpent, of totally, different
character. OF the horn-snake,' he
says, I never saw but two that re-
member. They are like the rattle
snake in color, but rather lighter.
They hiss exactly like goose when
anytime approaches them. They
strike at their enemy with their tail,
and kill whatsoever they wound with
it, which is armed at the end with
horny substance like a cocks spur.
This is their weapon. I have heard it
creditably reported, by those who
said they were eye-witnesses, that
small locust tree, about the thickness
of a mans arm, being, struck by one
in the morning, then verdant and
fourishing, at four in the afternoon
was dead, and the leaves red, and
whitening. Doubtless, be it how it
will, they are very venomous. l think
the Indians do not pretend to
cure their wounds
ssTh;s 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 in Coronaka and Will
sons creeks, yet there is still extant
in that region a tradition in which it
is related that many years ago man
in the lower part of the district or in
Edgefield, being closely pursued by
horn snake, took refuge behind tree,
with the enraged serpent, rolling
swiftly after him like trundled
hoop, plunged it's horny sting deep
into it's trunk, where it was made fast,
and so diffused its venom into the
circulating sap as to destroy in few
hours the vitality of the tree.
"Beatram, with all his acuteness
and enthusiasm as naturalist, has
certainly confounded the name of two
distinct native serpents of Carolina.
The bull snake, as he describes it, was
well known in the upper country at
the period of his visit and long after;
but the old people had seen and talk
ed much of the horn snake as we'll,
whose sting they dreaded as the visi-
tation of death. Hewitt informs us
that the horn snake was found in
Carolina and owed it's name not to a
horny excresence supposed, but to the
horn-like sting at the extremity of its
tail, with which it defended itself
striking with great force into every
agressor. 1t was also deemed ex-
ceedinly veenomous; and the 1ndi-
ans when stung by it did not resort
to their usual antidotes, but instantly
cut out the wounded part as the only
safe preventative of the deadly poison
being infused through the system.
Mills, in his statistics, enumerates,
among the indigenous reptiles of
Carolina, both the horn and bull
snake. The former, however, must
have been exceedingly rare; for at a
comparatively early period it had al
ready become creature of curious
tradition. Lawson, it has been OBJ
served, saw but two Of them as early
as 1871 Notwithstanding no white