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Just before I moved to the country, I called up the Museum of
Natural History and asked a man there what poisonous snakes were
to be found in Rockland County. Unhesitatingly he replied, “The
copperhead and the rattlesnake.” Going through the woods, I
never see either (now and then a blacksnake or some other
harmless reptile down near the stream or even up in the hills).
The children across the road warned me that in our woods snakes
hang from the trees. A man who works for the Interstate Park and
who lives just north of us on Gate Hill told me he’d never seen
any poisonous snakes on our land. ¶ On a mushroom walk near
Mianus Gorge in Connecticut we came across thirty copperheads
basking in the sun. Mr. Fleming put one in a paper bag and
carried it home attached to his belt. He is, of course, a
specialist with snakes, works for the Bronx Zoo, and makes
hunting expeditions in South America. However, he told me once
of another snake specialist who worked for the Park his whole
life without ever having any trouble, and then, after getting
his pension, went out tramping in the woods, was bitten by a
copperhead, didn’t take the bite seriously, and died of it. ¶
Among those thirty copperheads at Mianus Gorge I noticed three
different colorations, so that I have lost faith in the pictures
in the books as far as snake identification goes. What you have
to do, it seems, is notice whether or not there is a pitlike
indentation in each of the snake’s cheeks, between the eye and
the nostril, in order to be certain whether it’s poisonous or
not. That is, of course, difficult unless one is already
dangerously close. ¶ Over in New Jersey on Bare Fort Mountain
and once up at Sam’s Point we ran into rattlesnakes. They were
larger and more noble in action and appearance than the
copperheads. There was only one on each occasion, and each went
through the business of coiling, rattling, and spitting. Neither
struck. ¶ My new room is one step up from my old kitchen. One
fall evening before the gap between the two rooms was closed up,
I was shaving at the sink and happened to notice what seemed to
be a copperhead making its way into the house five feet away from
where I was standing. Never having killed a snake and feeling
the urgency of that’s being done, I called, “Paul! A
copperhead’s in the house!” Paul Williams came running over from
his house and killed the snake with a bread board. After he left,
the snake was still writhing. I cut off its head with a carving
knife. With a pair of tongs, I picked up both parts and flushed
them down the toilet. ¶ When I told Daniel DeWees what had
happened, he said, “That’s what I thought. When I was working
in the dark under the house the other day putting in the
insulation, I had the feeling there was a snake there near me.”
I said, “Was it just a feeling? Did you imagine it? Or was there
something made you certain?” He said, “Well, I thought I heard
some hissing.” |