Year: 1877



 rats-and who hasn't?-need be told that, vermin as they are, they are not lacking in courage when cornered. But the most ardent believer in rats fight ing abilities would hardly think of pitting even the blackest and bravest of the Norway persuasion against a healthy, poison-puffed rattlesnake True, the serpent is slow coach at best, and so long as an opponent keeps out of striking distance nothing is to be feared. But once he fastens a fang on any living creature, except it be pig or a mungoose, that creatures days are popularly supposed to be numbered. As for rats and mice, they are food for even the mildest of snakes, in the ordi- nary course of nature, and even so i'm nocent a constrictor as the black snake makes no furry in lunching on full grown squirrels. There are exceptions to most rules, however, and within a small wire cloth covered packing box in the store of prominent Boston manufacturing firm is now being ex- emplitied one of the most curious of these exceptions. A short time since few weeks hunting in Florida, and on his return he brought with him 8 monster rattlesnake, the gift of a friend. His snakeship measures about five feet in length and has body the size of a mans arm, the white, yellow and brown of his cuticle blending rather beautifully in patches of various forms. The heavy, triangular head, charac- teristic of venomous reptiles, has a sinister expression and, In moments of excitement, the five rattles on his tail keep up an unpleasantly suggestive whirring, while forked tongue of inky blackness and surprising length darts angrily from his turtle-like mouth. He is no sleepy, half-starved fellow, as may readily be imagined, but wide awake and ready for an encounter of any kind. It was into the cage occupied by this snake that three days since a rather small sized wharf rat was intro duced, in the expectation that the rodent would form meal for the stranger. The ophidian monster seemed to think so, too, for he darted on the unwilling visitor and caught him by the neck. The rat, who had hitherto been running around the cage trying to get out, gave sharp squeal as he felt the serpent's fangs, and, twisting him. self about, buried his teeth in the scaly jaw of the aggressor. The snake writhed and twisted and rattled sharp notes of alarm as the rat kept his sharp incisors at work, and before the spectators could fairly comprehend what had happened the little quadruped had shaken himself loose and was hopping in alright at the further end of the cage for means of exit. To the surprise of all he showed no effects of poison, and when the snake again made a grab at him he met his creeping foe half way and shipped off a piece of his long forked tongue. This seemed to be rather more than the Floridian had bargained for, and he dragged himself into corner, cast down and defeated. Since that time the rat has fourished in his strange quarters. He capers over the body of his whilom enemy, and avoids the punch of stick by creeping under the head of the snake. The rat seems per fectly indifferent as regards the reptile, and when the latter, reused to high degree of anger by outsiders, makes a strike at him, he hardly takes the trou

 ble to dodge, and only bites back when the rattler is unusually offensive. It is singular condition of things, and the rats immunity from death can not very easily be accounted for.