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By Frank R. Stockton
Originally published in 1896
In order to protect one's self against these creatures,
unless there are too many of them, it is only necessary to make noise enough to let the snake know
that some one is approaching, and it gets out of the
way as fast as possible; or, if it has not time to do
this, it coils itself up and springs its rattle, thus giving
notice that it is on hand, and ready to strike.
It has often been said that the snake's rattle is for
warning to birds and other animals; but this is now
known to be a mistake, for when a snake rattles, it
strikes its victim almost at the same time, if it has
a chance.
It is now believed that the rattle is used to attract
the attention of birds and other small creatures; and
when they turn, and look into the eyes of the terrible
serpent, they are so overcome with terror that
they cannot fly away, and soon become its prey.
This is commonly called snake charming; and a great
many instances of it are related by people who are in
the habit of telling the truth, and who have seen a
snake charm a bird which could have flown away just
as well as not, had it not been for the terrible attraction
of those great eyes, which drew it nearer and
nearer, until at last it found itself in the jaws of a
snake.
The Indians did not give this significance to the
rattle: they believed, as many people now do, that
it was merely used as a warning. So, when an Indian met with a snake which rattled before he came
up to it, he took it to be a snake of honest, straight-forward principles, who wished to deceive nobody,
and therefore gave fair notice of its presence. Such
a serpent was never molested. But if a snake rattled
after an Indian had passed, the red man went back
and killed the creature, on the ground that it was
a sneak and a coward, which had neglected to give
warning to the passer-by.
A farmer living in Cumberland County tells a story
about having discovered an island in a swamp, which
so abounded in snakes, that he and some of his neighbors conceived the idea that this was the place where
they made their headquarters, and from which, in
summer time, they wandered to forage upon the country.
The farmers waited until winter before they made
an attack upon this stronghold; and then they came
and dug up the ground, knowing that these reptiles
always pass the cold season in a torpid state underground.
It was not long before they came to what might be
called in these days a cold-storage vault. This was
a flat-bottomed cavity, filled to the depth of about three
inches with clear spring water; and in this water were
packed away a great number of snakes,
evenly laid side by side, so as to take up
as little room as possible. The majority of the creatures
were rattlesnakes; but there were
black snakes among them, and one
large spotted snake. Besides these,
there were, as the narrator expressed
it, at least a peck of
spring frogs; these having
probably crawled in to
fill up all corners and
vacant places. All these
reptiles were of course dormant and insensible, and
were easily destroyed.
There is another story which gives even a better
idea of the abundance of rattlesnakes in the new
colony. In a quarry, from which the workmen were
engaged in getting out stone for the foundations of
Princeton College, a wide crack in the rocks was discovered,
which led downward to a large cavity; and
in this cave were found about twenty bushels of rattlesnake
bones. There was no reason to believe that
this was a snake cemetery, to which these creatures
retired when they supposed they were approaching
the end of their days; but it was, without doubt, a
great rattlesnake trap. The winding narrow passage
leading to it must have been very attractive to a snake
seeking for retired quarters in which to take his long
winter nap. Although the cave at the bottom of the
great crack was easy enough to get into, it was so
arranged that it was difficult, if not impossible, for a
snake to get out of it, especially in the spring, when
these creatures are very thin and weak, having been
nourished all winter by their own fat. Thus year after
year the rattlesnakes must have gone down into that
cavity, without knowing that they could never get out
again.
The great rivals, in point of numbers, to the herring and other fish in the rivers of New Jersey (and
the snakes in their winter quarters underground), were
the wild pigeons in the air. Several times in the year the settlers would be visited by vast flocks of
these birds which tame in such numbers as to shut
out the light of the sun, as if they had been clouds
in the sky. They would remain in one place for a
few days, and then pass on. As it was unnecessary
to use hooks and lines to catch a few fish out of the
multitudes which swarmed in the streams, so it was
hardly worth while to waste powder and shot on the
vast flocks of pigeons which visited New Jersey in
those days. When they came to roost in the forests,
they could be knocked down with poles and stones; and
thousands and thousands of them were thus obtained
by the men and boys, and very good eating they were.
There was a summer in which the settlers were very
much astonished by the advent of a vast army of invaders
to which they were not at all accustomed.
These were locusts, probably of the kind we now call
seventeen-year locusts ; and the people were amazed to
see these creatures come up out of the ground, clad
in their horny coats of mail, which they afterwards
cast off, when they appeared as winged creatures.
They could not understand how insects. encumbered
by such hard, unwieldy shells, could penetrate to such
distance below the surface of the earth ; for they did
not know that each one of these locusts came from a
httle worm which had dropped into the ground many
years before, and which had worked its way down to
a great depth, and then, about a sixth of a century
afterward, had reappeared on the surface as a hard-shell locust, ready to split its back, get out of its shell,
spend a few days flying about in the summer air, lay
its eggs in the twigs of trees, and then, having fulfilled
all its duties on this earth, to die.
Although the farmers probably supposed that their
crops would be eaten up by this vast horde of locusts,
no great injury was done to them; for, as we now
know, the seventeen-year locusts do not appear upon
earth to destroy crops and vegetation, being far different
from the grasshopper-like locusts which in our
Western countries sometimes devastate large sections
of farming lands. The twigs of the trees, which had
been punctured in order that the eggs might be deposited,
recovered their life, and put forth their leaves
again when they had ceased to act as insect incubators.
Authorities:
This Web version, edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
"History of New Jersey." S. Smith.
"Historical Collections." Barber and Howe.
"The Burlington Smiths." R. M. Smith.
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