The Wilmington morning star., 1943-12-22
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-A lady scientist employed by
General Electric has measured tn e sound
made by rattleSnake three feet seven inches
long and presumably in a bit OF a temper.
as rattlerS usually are. Having noted which
TACT will inquire, in the words Of Moran and
Mack, who cares about that, and state that
1t is not the loudness but the significance of
the rattlesnakes rattle which counts The rat
tie is commonly understood to mean that the
rattler IS feeling somewhat petuiant but the
trouble is that sometimes he forgets to rattle
first and may be so small that his warning
cannot be heard. We had one in mayon-
nalse bottle once, no more than foot long
Keeping him just to show 10 people who came
around, and while he actually could rattle it
was really but an infantile lisp to be heard
only If you held the naayonnaise bottle close
to your ear. Yet he was supposed to carry
very dangerous charge OF poison and while
we did feel that in the case Of most captives
the gallant thing to do is to give them amnesty
after they have served their purposes as OBJ
Jects OF interest and amusement, we found
that in Arizona anyone who fails to kill a
public enemy. So one day we put the bottle
down, blasted it with shotgun held very
close and then finished off the badly mutt
lated captive with ali axe.
strangely although Arizona is host to
larger variety and greater number Of rattlerS
than most other states, including the side
W1nder which goes sideWiSe, and the cham
Der OF commerce spirit is by no means dead
among the people, nobody ever denies their
presence or pretends that they are as harm
less as the fishWorm. They Just say that
yes there are lots of rattlers around and you
mad better wear boots and watch your step,
especially among low clunps of desert growth
and around barns and in the shady lee of
the dry river banks, called washes, and al.
ways carry flashllght at night. Our neigh
Dor, Mr.. Seany, saw two fairly big ones
around his stable one day which got away
however before he could find rock stick
and that night one got in the manager and
stabbed his little boys painted pony right on
the nose. The pony's head swelled enormously
and MIR. Seany went looking for the rattlers
very earnestly and killed one hiding behind
the door, and the other somewhere else, and
poultied the pony which presently got well.
Mr.. Seany is a straight chamber OF COM
merce man but he didn't try to say it was
hornets, any true-believing Floridian would
have.
The FlorldianS, including even the Johnny
| come-latelies just off the train, are extremely
| sensitive about their reptiles and their more
unpleasant types of fish and Insects; and one
| time IN Tampa during the big land boom
| some OF the more aggressive realtors like
to run colleague out of town because he
stretched out on the sidewalk III front of his
lana store diamond back about eight feet
| long ana as big as an inner tube which one
OF his crews had killed while cleaning pal
nettoes Tor a subdivision called as I re.
member, Oldsnaar. Once as I was crossing
the causeWay to Miami Beach with Mr. Steve
flanagan who was running local enter
prise roughly equivalent to ou1 present owl
we sa" some aWfully big fish cruising in
the bay, exhibiting large triangular fins.
| Sharks, l exclaimed.
perch MIR: flanagan retorted. "sea
perch Very edible oea
And it was the late Jimmy Hussev an
Irish comedian employed by the schuherts in
their selles f Oh Oh passing shows TO do dialect,
who tried to raise turkeys around Homest man
Fla, but had to give it Up because Of ths
autoes. He said the bull moso,,itoes VI the
the ami tpr bess preserve dive off the TOM