Abstract
THE letter of Edward F. Hardman in NATURE (vol. xxix. p. 452), with reference to the suicide of black snakes, recalls an incident which I once witnessed; I was quite small, but my memory of the strange occurrence is very clear and distinct. It was in the State of Illinois, when at that early day a short, thick variety of rattlesnake was very numerous, so much so that the State acquired an unenviable reputation in the older parts of the Union. Farmers in “breaking prairie,” as the first ploughing of the prairie sod was called, would kill them by dozens in the course of a single summer. They were very venomous, but owing to their sluggish nature and their rattle, which was always sounded before an attack, but few persons were bitten by them. Moreover, there was little danger of death if proper remedies were applied at once.
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MANLEY, W. Suicide of Snakes. Nature 30, 268 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/030268a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/030268a0
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