Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo16amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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OBSERVATIONS OX SNAKES IN THE FIELD 131 Some of the rattlers observetl have been so gentle and quiet in their behavior that had I been willing to chance it, I believe I could safely have handled them, although I gave them free liberty of their heads. It is never wise however to let confidence lead into any recklessness. Other specimens on the other hand, continually acted in an altogether vicious manner and showed no signs of tam- ing. Judging from a single specimen one can never be sure just what to expect from another snake of the same species. One young rattler (about a year old) which I caught in Connecti- cut was about the sauciest snake that I ever met, while another of the same age captured in Massachusetts by Mr. Charles Snjaler (of the New York Zoological Park) and myself a few davs earlier was its exact antithesis. A party of seven of us had been out to "look over" a special den on top of one of the mountains, but had had no success in finding specimens as it was late in the season at that spot and evidently all of the snakes had crawled away to lower levels for food and water. On our homeward way we had wandered down nearly to the foot of the mountain and were in fairly heavy timber on an easy slope of land, when the youngest member of our party tripped and fell full length on the ground, throwing his hands out ahead of him to break the force of his tumble. Immediately there was a scream from him of "Rattlesnake!" and with almost as much speed as he had made in falling he scrambled to his feet again. When his left hand had hit the earth, he had seen that it was within about four inches of a small rattler
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Forking a rattler preliminary to bagging it. After the rattler is thus secured so that it cannot strike (forked stick about five feet long), the fork can be replaced by the fingers and th.; snake safely handled in the transfer from the ground to the collecting bag. The tail should be grasped with the other hand to prevent the snake coiling about the arm

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